


Valentine's

by troublemakerdim



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, I love WonKwan, I love Wonkwan friendship, M/M, Massively inspired by criminal minds, Mentioned Hong Jisoo | Joshua, Minghao is a detective, Multi, Past Wonhui, Please tell me if you find any mistakes, Wonwoo is a forensic, implied verkwan - Freeform, past Woncheol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 06:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17095214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troublemakerdim/pseuds/troublemakerdim
Summary: A series of murders has been plaguing Seoul and the police is overwhelmed with the difficulty of the case. Seoul's criminal investigation unit is working on it but, they spend more times filing reports than actually solving anything. Even their forensic Wonwoo doesn't seem to be able to solve it.That's where Minghao comes, with his assistant Chan, they help the police find the serial killer that's been wrecking havoc in the streets of Seoul. They might find something else along the way.





	Valentine's

**00:00:29:49**

Working as a detective wasn’t just a full-time job for Minghao, it was a lifestyle. Chan and He were always on the job, always on crime scenes, always investigating. Being a detective didn’t start at 9 am and end at 5 pm; being a detective was sleeping in the office after a long case and being woken up at 3 am because another case came up. 

Maybe that’s why he liked the job so much. There was always uncertainty. No day was like the other, and it got him to display the array of skills he’d acquired through the years. From studies in art and cinema to the photography skills to even Wushu, he could use all of it on the job. 

Chan was also another great part of being a detective. A few years back he’d come to his office shouting he wanted to learn and become an honorable detective. He learnt later on that Chan had run away from home and wanted to make a name for himself. He never asked why the younger boy ran away; maybe it was better that way. 

Currently, said boy is sat by the windowsill looking at Seoul by night. They’re in the office, a comfortably big room, with a kitchenette and a bathroom. It has two couches that are convertible into beds and two desks, one by a window and the other placed next to it. There are plants everywhere, mostly flora that Minghao enjoys taking care of and paintings he’d done when he was in college. Small figurines of dogs sit on a shelf on top of Chan’s designated couch. Two huge bookcases are placed behind the desks. The room is more warm toned and has a relaxing aura to it.

The radio is on, playing some kind of relaxing music, it is 12:54 am after all. 

Minghao is sat on his couch, book in hand. A woman bursts into the room, she’s wearing an expensive trench coat and has sunglasses on. She looks anxious and a very tired. Minghao almost assumes she’s here for another cheating husband case. The woman greets them and he gets up and goes to shake her hand. 

“Xu Minghao, yes?” She asks nervously and he glances over at Chan who’s looking at him as well. 

“Yes? How may we help you?” 

She takes out a picture; it’s a young girl, probably around 18. The woman lets out a sob. “Please help me find who killed her! The police isn’t doing anything! I can’t take it anymore!” 

Chan’s startled and falls from the windowsill while the raven tries to calm the woman down and sit her down. He makes her a cup of tea. 

“Is this…about the Valentine’s butcher?” The youngest asks as he hands her a handkerchief. She nods pitifully. 

“I’ll pay you 30 million now and the other 50 million later. Please…find who did this to her!” She sobs again as she takes out a picture of a gruesome display. The detective places a cup of tea on the table next to where she’s sitting and sighs. 

“How about you tell us what you know” Minghao says as he sits on his desk. He makes himself comfortable.

Tonight’s going to be a long night, Chan thinks as the woman starts telling her story. 

********  
  
  
  


**06:03:48:29**

“Alright so, it seems like the victim’s name is Lee Sungwoo, he’s 23, lives in a small apartment 3 blocks away and studies at Sejong University in….Public administration, Vernon reads the notes he’s collected from the other officers, apparently he works in the café right there at the corner and disappeared yesterday as he was taking his break at 4:37, he’s not the type to play hookie so the manager got worried and called the police. He reappeared today…dead.” 

Seungcheol nods at the words and sighs. This is the 18 th case they’ve encountered. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to get any better honestly. It all started on the 14 th of February. A lovely Valentine’day, or at least that would’ve been the case if it weren’t for the butcher that happened in Gangnam. It was a young woman that time, and she had been mutilated (mutilated jesus!) and displayed on a broken car’s front. 

It was some kind of display according to Jihoon, as if it were art, or symbolism, maybe even some kind of sick imagery for a butcher’s store display. The smaller blond had taken so many pictures that day, which are still displayed on their wall in the office. Seungcheol’s been working in the field for close to 7 years now, and that was by far, the worst thing he’d ever seen. 

“Don’t even consider that guy a human at this point,” Jihoon had said one day, “that person, whoever they are, lost their humanity long ago.” Seungcheol couldn’t agree more. He calls for said man, who approaches him with another one of his police officers. Soonyoung hands him a couple of pictures and the man can’t help but cringe. 

“They’re getting worse and worse” He comments looking at one of the pictures.

“Seems like it, he’s still not taking any more risks. I was so sure that after that spectacular documentary on him, he’d want to come out, but he’s still as careful as he used to be, at least when displaying the body.” Jihoon pauses for a while and looks at his camera. “This time, I’m thinking the display has something to do with Sherlock holmes.” 

Seungcheol gives him an incredulous look “What?” 

The smaller blond takes out his phone and goes to look up ‘A study in scarlet’, he shows Seungcheol the book before he reads on its Wikipedia page; “ His body was found dead near the hotel window, stabbed through the heart. Above his body was written “RACHE”. The only things Stangerson had with him were a novel, a pipe, and a small box containing two pills. ” 

Soonyoung looks awfully put off, because while there was a note saying Rache and the objects were also found on the crime scene, the display was a lot more grotesque than what the book had in mind. They all look at the body, whose internal organs had been displayed around the corpse. The young man was holding the book and the pill box, pipe in mouth, taped messily. 

“Jesus… We need to stop this guy” 

“Yeah, no shit” Vernon says from behind them “This guy is driving the entire city crazy. Everyone is constantly panicked! Have you seen Wonwoo?” They all nod. He hasn’t been the same since he was added to their team. Seungcheol almost blames himself for it. 

“We need to end this…Once and for all” Vernon says and they all agree. They’re about to send the body to the morgue when a man approaches the crime scene. He wears an oversized black blouse that looks expensive and a pair of fashionable pants. He has loafers on and a leather bag. A pair of round glasses sits neatly on his nose. He has sharp eyes but a gentle nose and face. His hair is dark black.

“Hello to you sirs” He says when he gets close enough. Seungcheol raises an eyebrow, this guy has a mullet. 

“Sir, you’re not allowed on the crime scene” He replies matter of fact-ly. The man in front of them smiles and seems to be looking in his pockets for something “I was sure I put it somewhere over here”. 

That’s when a young boy, maybe in his late teens, comes barreling towards them. He has brown hair that’s styled in a way that exposes his forehead. He’s in a denim jacket with quite a few colorful patches on its sleeves, and colorful sneakers which contrast heavily with the outfit the man in front of them wears.  “Minghao Hyung!!! You dropped the card!!” 

“Oh! Chan thank you” He smiles warmly at the young boy and shows them the card. The young boy does the same. 

“Pleased to meet you. I’m Xu Minghao, private detective.” 

“Pleased to meet you as well, I’m Lee Chan, assistant detective.”

The chief looks at the two and sighs heavily, today is going to be a long day.

********  
  
  
  
  


**03:08:00:39**

Wonwoo shouldn’t be here right now. He should be home, sleeping, maybe even taking a shower, probably eating something to not die. But instead, here he is, in his office. He can’t blame anyone but himself. He wants to be here anyways, he wouldn’t get anything done at home. Nothing, except maybe read his notes and case papers for hours on end.

Three days ago, the body of Lee Sungwoo arrived in his lab, and he’s been working on the autopsy ever since. He had already done most of it, but was reviewing some essential notes he had taken. 

Seungkwan and Mingyu constantly tell him to go home, to rest, to forget about this entire thing for just two minutes but he can’t. He can’t. 

So instead, he drowns himself in work, and he thanks Mingyu when he’s stuffing food down his throat, or Seungkwan when comes and pushes him into the lab bathrooms and tells him he stinks (“More than a dead body! Jesus you smell deader than all of them!”). That usually prompts him to shower, not too long, but enough to not smell like death anymore. 

He just took a shower, because Seungkwan had called him and said to do it now before he got to the forensics’ office. The raven is about to ask why the hell Seungkwan was on his way to the office, there was nothing for him to do, not at 4 am at least. Most reports were already filed and stamped. What was Seungkwan’s job anyways? 

Mingyu was also there, the boy was asleep on one of the couches, specifically Wonwoo’s office couch. He had been on his phone looking up information about the victim online. He was very adamant on helping even if it wasn’t his job and Wonwoo didn’t have the heart to reject him. He ended up falling asleep maybe an hour or so ago. 

When Seungkwan arrives, the doors of the lab open up dramatically. The young secretary comes in and barrels through the lab until he gets to Wonwoo’s office. He’s wearing his usual outfit, an elegant blouse and a pair of trousers. His hair is bleached blond and he’s wearing a beret. He looks a bit out of place in a forensic laboratory.

He smells the air a bit “Well it doesn’t smell more dead in here than it usual does. You pass the test” The raven rolls his eyes and asks him what he’s doing here. “Your shift starts at 10 am” he reminds the younger.  

“Yes Yes I know but listen! I wasn’t in when it happened, so I didn’t know to tell you, but apparently they brought in a private detective” 

“They what?!” Wonwoo looks up from poor Sungwoo’s body to stare at Seungkwan incredulous. “Why would we need a detective!? A private one at that! We’re doing fine without them!” He shouts before going back to the body. Meanwhile Mingyu was startled awake by the shouting and face-planted on the ground. 

“Hyung…why do you have to be so loud” The tall man whines. His bed hair is all over the place. 

“Mingyu…”He starts “How long have you interned here?” He gives the boy an unimpressed look.

“Like…a year or something?” 

“Wait what!? A year!? How is that poss- You know what, whatever, point is, It’s been a year, this is my office, I do as I fucking please. Also, this is my couch! Get off!” Seungkwan rolls his eyes this time and gets back to his story. Mingyu heads to the kitchen, pouting petulantly

“Anyways,” The secretary resumes “apparently, one of the victim’s families had enough of the wait; so they hired him,” before Seungkwan could finish Wonwoo rolls his eyes.

“Let me guess, it’s Jung SooBin’s family, the rich conceited assholes” He cuts into Sungwoo’s torso a bit too forcefully at the last word. Seungkwan cringes. “Okay Okay! Listen, we need a plan of attack” 

“A what?!” Mingyu asks with a tray in hand “Why do we need a plan!? Who are we going to attack?” 

“Have you been listening!? There’s a private detective in the case now! We can’t let him act all high and mighty with us! We’re the crime department for fucks sake!” Seungkwan puffs his chest with pride. “I heard from Jihoon that the dude was super conceited and a know-it-all” 

“Those are the worst” Wonwoo grumbles as he takes a few notes. He puts his papers down and goes on to sew the victim’s torso back up. 

“Exact-“

“Wait Lee Jihoon said that?” Mingyu interrupts.

“Ugh! Of course not! Lee Jihoon wouldn’t talk after a crime scene investigation you know he does that weird thing! I was talking about Kim Jihoon!!!” 

“You can’t believe Kim Jihoon; he’s kind of a pathological liar” Mingyu answers. 

He places the cups of coffee on Wonwoo’s desk. Mingyu drinks Americano just like Wonwoo does, although the forensic prefers sweeter things. Seungkwan only drinks macchiato or lattes. Mingyu always makes their coffee up to their taste which might be a reason why Seungkwan hangs around so often, even if he has his own office at the station.

“It’s true, he does lie a lot” Wonwoo adds and takes a sip of his coffee. He sighs, he needed that. 

“Okay but he’s the only one who actually talked to him, other than the crime scene team” Seungkwan pouts.

Wonwoo puts his notes down and moves to put Sungwoo’s body back in its spot in the morgue. He comes back and takes off his gloves “Why didn’t you ask Vernon then?” 

“Why would I ask Vernon?” 

“…Because you’re dating!? Duh!” Mingyu giggles as Seungkwan makes a face. “What!? NO! I would never!!!!” They keep bantering until Wonwoo shakes his head amusedly and tells them to take their quarrels elsewhere because he needs to finish the report. “Sir Yes sir!” they shout and quickly leave. 

They go to the kitchen but he can still hear them quarrel there. 

He’s writing his report when Seungcheol calls him. “Yes Seungcheollie?” 

‘Jesus, I said no nicknames on the job!’ He chastises but Wonwoo knows he enjoys the nicknames. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” He laughs and gets back to typing his report. Seungcheol is probably the easiest one to tease out of all his colleagues. 

‘We’re bringing someone over at the lab; you’ll tell them what you’ve discovered from the Sungwoo case.’ Wonwoo nods through the phone, completely forgetting that this is a call, and that nodding was not a vocal response. He hears laughing on the other side of the line. “What?” 

‘Nonu are you nodding on the call again?’

“What!? No! So much for no nicknames on the job…” He whines. “Whatever, just bring me a cake or something I’m starving” 

‘Did you even eat dinner last night?’ No answer.

‘Nonu... Did you eat dinner last night?’ Wonwoo knows what will happen if he says no, so he quickly ends the call. But he’s foolish, because ending the call could only infuriate Seungcheol even more. Ugh, he wasn’t in the mood to get scolded first thing in the morning; or at 4 am. Was it first thing in the morning if you didn’t actually sleep…? 

Soon, the crime scene investigator team comes in, as expected. Jihoon in at the front, and quickly makes his way to the couch Mingyu was sleeping on; he wraps a blanket around him and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Soonyoung and Vernon make their way to the kitchen, probably to find Seungkwan and Mingyu. Meanwhile, Seungcheol and a tall man with a…mullet approach his office. There’s a younger boy who appears behind the mullet man after they’ve arrived. 

The tall man must be the detective; he smirks as he sees Wonwoo then whispers something to his companion. For some reason this just irks the raven. What the hell was this guy’s problem? He wasn’t even one foot into his office and he was already acting like a dick, maybe Kim Jihoon was right for once.  

He gets up and greets everyone, because before being petty Jeon Wonwoo, he was a professional. He learns that the mullet asshole man is Xu Minghao and that the younger boy is Lee Chan. Chan reminds him of someone; he smiles at him and stops himself from pinching his cheek. 

He concludes, in those two first minutes, that he likes Chan and that Minghao is annoying. 

When they’ve introduced themselves, Seungcheol deposits a bag on Wonwoo’s desk. “Eat, you’re going to diet your way out of existence if this keeps going.” The raven laughs and opens the bag. There’s fried chicken and diet coke in there. Nice.

The three men sit down near the desk and Seungcheol is about to explain who Minghao is while the raven eats his chicken, but Wonwoo beats him to it. “He’s the detective you want us to work with; yeah I know” 

“Ho-“ 

Wonwoo gives him a look. A look that says: ‘are you serious?’

“Right, Seungkwan.” He gets up and goes to the kitchen, probably to tell Seungkwan to stop spreading rumors around the office. Meanwhile, the two detectives stay seated. Minghao is looking at him eat, smiling. Chan looks everywhere but at him. They don’t say a word; except for a couple of whispers the smaller brunet seems to give his ….What are they exactly? 

“Is Chan also a detective?” 

“No, I’m Minghao’s assistant; detective assistant.” The raven nods and goes back to eating his chicken. He’s only eating because he saw a piece of cake in the bag and he really wants to eat it but he knows Seungcheol won’t let him if he doesn’t eat some of the meat.

“So,” He starts again “You wanted me to tell you about the case right?” Minghao nods. He’s smiling. All he’s done so far is observe him and whisper probably mean things to his assistant. Oh god…He hopes he’s not one of those Sherlock wannabes that try to read you and asshole-ish-ly expose your ‘traumatic past’ in an attempt to flirt with you. 

He finishes one of the chicken boxes and grabs the cake. He places it on a plate and takes a fork. He starts eating the thing as he makes his way to one of the boards where he writes down all the key information. There are pictures of the victims, as well as detailed descriptions of the crime scenes. 

“Alright so, from what we’ve gathered, he’s most definitely a man, or a very strong woman, because he carries literal bodies multiple blocks away in very few minutes. He blends in easily, so I’m guessing natural hair, average, maybe a little tall. At first, we thought he’d be older, he seems to have experience. But, it seems like he’s in his early 20s” Chan raises an eyebrow. The raven notices and answers before he can even ask.  

“First of all, he’s extremely well versed in not only technology,” he points at case 5 which had the picture of the body broadcasted in emails all over the city “but he also is quite proficient in internet culture.” 

“Internet culture?” Minghao asks. The raven nods “He seems to like using internet references as well as newer generation pop culture references, like singers, actors, movies…Something that someone in their late 30s wouldn’t know.” Minghao nods “What about the Sungwoo case” 

“What about it?” The forensic turns to them. 

“I’m not sure a child in their 20s would really know about Sherlock Holmes ‘A study in scarlet’” Chan nods at the detective’s words. “Perhaps, but if you think about it, it’s more likely that they’re young, and got interested in something older, than the other way around.” 

“How come?” Chan asks.

Minghao murmurs “A study was made…If I recall” The raven nods. “Yes, at a certain age mark, it’s more likely that you’ll keep listening to your own generation’s music. It becomes harder to be interested in things the younger generations like. It seems like, if he wanted to keep up the rate of murders he’s been doing up until now, and with the amount of knowledge he has of the subjects, it’s unlikely that he had any time to do the research before acting again.” 

“What else?” Chan questions 

“Every single scene is like…a display. It’s like art or something for him. He finds joy more in displaying, and hearing about the murders than actually killing people. For him, killing is just a means to get what he wants; recognition and accomplishing his craft. I think he views himself as a new generation artist; a lot of the scenes are very theatrical and grandiose. He also seems to kill during the day and set everything up at night.” 

“Why does he wait so long…?” 

“I’m not quite sure honestly…but for every single body, we found it around a day or so later. It’s always in early decomposition stages.” One last bite of his cake and he sets the plate down on his desk.

“So he kills, moves the body, works on his display, displays his work at night and then waits for someone to discover the body, usually in the early hours of the day, when shop keepers start opening up, or if a jogger passes by. Do we know where he preps everything?” Minghao resumes, he’s trying to process all the information, at least that’s what the forensic thinks. 

“No, not yet, we’ve looked through victim apartments and abandoned buildings but nothing’s come out so far. There’s something else” Wonwoo starts “He loves messing with the police” The two men raise an eyebrow. “For cases 3, 7, 9, and 15 there has always been a quip at the police. Sometimes it’s a note, sometimes it’s the way the body is placed, but there have been quite a few attempts at mocking the crime division. The one for case 7 was specifically aimed at Jihoon.” 

“What was it?” 

“It was extremely childish,” The raven rummages through one of the many boxes that contain evidence. He takes out a file with a bunch of papers strewn around and hands it to Minghao. The man takes it and reads “’What’s a fairy doing on a crime scene?’….It seems awfully childish for a serial killer, one seemingly of his standing at that.” 

“It is, I’m not quite sure what he was expecting. Jihoon didn’t even think anything of it and just quickly put it away. In my opinion, it might be something pleasurable for him to know we haven’t found him yet. We don’t know his motives yet, but from what I’ve gathered, being known around the city is exhilarating to him. It might be why he’s confident enough to poke at the police” 

“I see…” 

Just then, Seungcheol and the rest of them come into the office and turn on the tv, Wonwoo’s about to ask when a familiar face appears on the screen, it’s Wen Junhui, EBS’s most famous news anchor. His hair isn’t styled today and Wonwoo almost thinks it suits him.

He’s not smiling at the camera, and has a very serious expression on. ‘Good morning dear viewers we interrupt your 5 am broadcast for a quick report; according to our sources, the Valentine’s Butcher has been sending letters to multiple residents of the city informing them that they would be his next targets; coincidentally, none of them have been targeted yet. Could this be the sick joke of a local or could it really be the man himself? Live with us is Yoon Jeonghan, who has met up with one of the victims.’ 

The screen changes and cuts in the middle, there’s another man on the left side of the screen, Yoon Jeonghan, famous reporter. He has his long hair styled in a low ponytail and his makeup is done.

He’s with an old woman ‘Seokmin? Is it live?’ The voice from the other side of the camera shouts a loud ‘ON AIR’ and Jeonghan nods and turns to the woman. He introduces her and starts his interview ‘Miss Jeon, why haven’t you informed the police?’ The woman looks a bit put off by the questions but she answers nonetheless ‘The police hasn’t been doing anything for the population! We’ve gotten to 18 cases and they still haven’t found the killer! It seems useless to complain about a letter to them. Plus in my old age, what was the point of saying anything anyways.’ Jeonghan nods and turns back to the camera.

‘It seems that in this particularly tense period, more than fear, it’s been clearly obvious that the faith in our police forces has decreased. Many citizens wonder today, if the police really is doing anything to stop the gruesome murders of the Valentine’s Butcher. This was Yoon Jeonghan and Lee Seokmin, live, from Seoul City’ 

The screen turns off and everyone looks at Seungcheol. He has his head in his hands and he looks like he’s very close to giving up. He looks up at them. He seems tired. Ever since the murders had started, it’s like he’s gained quite a few years on his face. 

He claps his hands loudly “We’re getting back to work, Vernon, you and Soonyoung are going to interrogate the family, ask if anything weird’s been happening, ask for how his life at school was;” They nod and take off. “Seungkwan, you and I are going back to my office, and you’re going to help me finish up the goddamn report so I can get back to investigating and show Yoon Jeonghan I’m not playing with my fucking balls.” 

The young blond hurriedly nods and prepares his things; he wakes Jihoon up on his way out. “Minghao and Chan, you’re free to do as you please, if there’s anything we can do to help, let us know.” The two men nod and get up. They don’t leave though. “Wonwoo,” Seungcheol begins. The man in question looks away from the tv and back to his Hyung “Yes Cheollie?” 

“Go home, and sleep. Do me this one favor, okay?” Wonwoo wants to retort but the tired look on Seungcheol’s face tells him to do otherwise. He doesn’t want to upset the man more than he already is. It must’ve been a pain to see Yoon Jeonghan on TV. He meekly nods and cleans up his things before exiting and locking down the office. Everyone’s gone by the time he’s done, except for Mingyu, who’s sitting on one of the meeting table chairs. 

His head is hung low and his brown hair is softly hanging from his face. He’s already dressed up to leave. 

“Mingyu” The raven approaches the young man. “Come on, let’s go home and sleep a bit” 

“Hyung…Is it really our fault?” The forensic sighs and pats the younger’s cheek. They’ve known each other for a year now, and Mingyu was like his little brother. He was family and he loved him a lot. 

“Mingyu, do you remember when case number 12 came rolling in?” Mingyu nods, how could he forget…there was a heart cut out in the chest. Apparently, it had been Valentine’s day themed.

“Case 12 came in, and the mother was right there, at the door. She was yelling at Seungcheol because he hadn’t found the killer yet and that’s why her son was dead. But, in reality, it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Because her son had lied, and said he was going to a friend’s house but was on the other side of the town, in a questionable area.” Mingyu nods, he looks unconvinced though. 

“What I’m trying to say is; sometimes, it’s easier to blame others, when we know that we ourselves might’ve made a mistake. It’s easier to dismiss people’s effort, than admit we could’ve done better, or could’ve done something, because we’re human, and we don’t like hurting our pride by admitting we were mistaken.” 

The tanned boy nods very slowly and gets up “Thanks Hyung” He smiles, a tight and small smile but a smile nonetheless. If anything, Wonwoo is glad the boy’s enthusiasm hasn’t faltered. He takes his bag and waves his hyung goodbye. “I’m going to the library and then home! I’m going to find out more I promise!! See you this afternoon!” Wonwoo smiles and waves back. When the younger is gone, he lets go of a sigh. 

He takes his bag and makes his way out. He locks away the lab and turns off the lights. When he’s out of the building, it’s already 5h30 am, the sun is starting to rise. There’s two men standing near an expensive looking car. Wonwoo recognizes them as Minghao and Chan. He approaches them “What are you two still doing here?”  He asks. Minghao, who had been extremely quiet the entire time they’ve been together, starts by opening the front seat’s door. 

“Wonwoo, would you mind joining us for a breakfast?” Chan doesn’t wait for his answer and sits on the back seat. He’s quite confused. 

********  
  
  
  
  


**03:06:10:52**

He hasn’t slept in approximately 48+ hours and his last meal was a chicken wing and a half and also a really good piece of raspberry cheesecake (but that wasn’t the point). He’s definitely not in a state where anyone should take him to a fancy café in downtown Seoul but here they were anyways. 

His hair is a mess (from taking a shower like 2 hours ago) and he’s in his work attire. He’s sitting at one of the tables near the window in an expensive looking café. The walls were red and white with gold embellishments and the tables were beautifully decorated. It kind of had a French vibe, or at least as French as it gets in downtown Seoul. 

There were quite a lot of foreigners having breakfast, which was weird because 6:30 am isn’t really a time where tourists would usually take a breakfast…right? He wouldn’t know anyways because he’s never been on vacation, so he doesn’t really know the rules of breakfast taking as a tourist. 

All of that is beside the point anyways. The main point is, he isn’t sure what he’s doing here, surrounded by porcelain cups and silver spoons. Minghao is sat across from him, drinking some tea. He had just finished eating his fruit salad. Chan was on his left; he was eating toast and jam with hot cocoa (that was kind of adorable if Wonwoo were to be honest). 

He has a cup of café-au-lait with a piece of cake in front of him. He decides to stop staring stupidly at the two others, or at the café decoration, or at the tourists, and just eat the free food he was being offered. 

The cake was a forêt noire; it was a French cake with cherries in between layers of chocolate sponge cake. Wonwoo melted in his spot when he ate the first spoonful. He ended up finishing the entire thing in three more spoonfuls. He moves onto the coffee and after dunking a questionable amount of sugar in his coffee, he takes a careful sip. With a satisfied sigh he starts drinking it. He looks up again to the two others to find Minghao intently staring at him again. 

‘What the hell did I do to get these stares Jesus…’ he thinks to himself, looking back at his lap.  

Chan finishes his toast and tells Minghao he’s going to go wash-up. Minghao only nods and tells him to take his time, that seems to be code for something because Chan’s eyes widen and he hurries away to the bathroom. 

“So,” oh no “Dr. Jeon,” Wonwoo cuts him before he can finish his thoughts “Wonwoo is fine, Dr. Jeon makes me feel a lot older than I am” 

“And how old would that be, Wonwoo?” The raven would’ve almost thought his tone was flirty if it weren’t for the fact he had shown no interest in him since they’ve met. He was mocking him even so…it couldn’t be, right? 

“I’m 27, or I will be, in less than a month” Minghao nods. 

“Oh? Well, I’ll cut to the chase. You seem to be quite knowledgeable in the case’s details, how long have you worked on it? I heard you haven’t been on it since the beginning.” He sips on his tea one last time before refilling his cup with the teapot. 

“I have, just not directly.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“Another forensic was working on the case but he was fired. He would sell information to the press before handing it out to the police. During the time he was working, I was reading reports of the murders in my spare time.” The older isn’t really looking at Minghao, there’s something about the other that’s a bit intimidating. Instead, he plays with the sleeves of his shirt. 

He tries to calm himself because the looks he’s receiving from the other are…weird.

“A hard-worker” The other murmurs. The raven hears him still. 

“I wouldn’t say that. I think it’s gone beyond just wanting to work hard now” He lets the last part slip, he wasn’t supposed to say that.  

“Well what is it to you then?” 

“That’s not something I have to tell you”

“I see, well Jeon Wonwoo, how about you go home for now and think about this; what if, you and I worked together to find this murderer?” Confusion paints itself on the forensic’s face.  

“Aren’t we already doing that Detective Xu Minghao?” He looks up to meet Minghao in the eye. There’s a weird kind of tension between them. Wonwoo tells himself maybe the detective doesn’t really like the police. That’s why they might be staring each other down so intensely. Maybe they’re destined rivals.  

“No, right now I’m working with the Crime Investigation department of Seoul. I’m asking if Jeon Wonwoo would like to work with me. As in, you’d come to investigate with me. I want your insight on this case, you seem to have a clever mind” 

“My insight? I don’t think I follow here. Thank you for your compliment but the only insight I can give is in my lab, after an autopsy. That’s my job. That’s what I studied for.” 

“No, you’ll bring me a lot more. Think about it.” He gets up and takes his bag. “There’s been 18 murders in the span of 4 months and a half Jeon Wonwoo, how many murders a week does that make? From 14 th of February to the 23 rd of June.”

“It’s 1 murder a week, Xu Minghao.” He’s already done the calculations. The man’s work was done once every week on a Wednesday. 

“So you know he’ll strike again the night before next Wednesday.” 

“Yes, it’s highly plausible” 

“So we have approximately 72 hours before case number 19 to appear. That’s quite a small amount of time isn’t it?” He has a mischievous smile on. He looks like someone who doesn’t like to lose. “I’d say it is, if you want to find a serial killer that is.” 

“Well we’ll have to make do with what we have Jeon Wonwoo,” He takes out a card from his bag “This is my card. Call me by 12 to tell me what you want to do. With that, I hope you have a lovely day Jeon Wonwoo” 

Before he’s really out of the place, he turns to the raven and speaks “You know, you have a quite elegant way of holding yourself” 

He smiles one last time and leaves the café. 

The forensic stares at the other man’s back as he leaves. He’s a bit stunned if he’s being honest; he’s a little weird after all…isn’t he? Elegant? He’s not…elegant? Is he…? 

Plus, there was no way they could find the ‘valentine’s butcher’ before the next case…could they?  

For a second almost, Wonwoo believed this man could maybe find the killer. He believed they could find whoever’s been wrecking havoc around town, together. For a second, the man almost agreed to this man’s proposition without a second thought. Didn’t he hate the guy’s guts? 

He leaves the café confused and tired. He really needs some sleep. 

********  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**03:04:12:39**

When he gets home, he blacks out on his dingy couch almost immediately. 

Wonwoo isn’t poor. He’s a forensic, so he gets quite a good pay, but that doesn’t really matter if you spend most of your time in your office. He doesn’t really have time to go out and decorate his apartment, he also doesn’t really want to. His office, that’s where he feels the most comfortable anyways. 

The place is spacious, with a desk, a work bench and a large board on one of the walls. There are huge windows behind his desk with stickers all over them (the culprit of this case was Soonyoung). There was a TV on the wall across the board.

A laptop sits on his desk with more stickers that Soonyoung got him. They were stickers of cats that the blond got him for his birthday. There are small toys Seungkwan and Mingyu got him from their trips. A bunch of polaroids are scotched on the walls and stuck under the glass of his desk. The pictures are of him and his family and his friends. There’s a bookshelf Seungcheol built him when there were too many books piling up on the corner of his office. 

He got the couch himself, the one in his office. It’s a nice maroon color, and he initially got it because Jihoon always sleeps when he gets to the lab after an investigation. He’d sleep on the ground, and he had place anyways so he got the thing. Jihoon hasn’t said anything about it, but Wonwoo knows he appreciates it. 

As mentioned, all of his favorite books were there. Vernon got him his favorite one, ‘The seventh day’ by Yu Hua. Thinking about it, he should reread it. 

So all in all, he liked his office. It was a home more than his apartment was. 

As anyone could tell, he hadn’t slept much. He blacked out an hour before his phone started ringing. It was just Soonyoung, who was reminding him that he needed to sleep. He grumbles that he WAS and turns off the call. 

He slumps back on the couch and attempts to get back to sleep. He stares mindlessly at the wall in front of him as sleep doesn’t make itself easy anymore. He thinks back to his breakfast with Minghao. “Ugh…I can’t believe myself” He groans and flips and turns around for a few more minutes before he actually manages to fall back asleep. 

It’s 11:38 when he wakes up again. He’s incredibly groggy and his mind is hazy. He slowly opens his eyes and moves around on the couch. He checks his phone sleepily, puts it back down and in his sleepy daze decides to get back to sleep. 

2 minutes later, he abruptly gets up from the couch, knocks his coffee table and hurts his knee in the process. He sits back down and groans in pain. That was going to leave a very ugly bruise. 

There’s like 12 minutes before it’s too late. He mulls over his decision, is this really…a good idea? He doesn’t really understand why he’s agreeing, this isn’t usually like him. He’s…intrigued. Yeah that’s the word. 

From what he’s gathered so far, Minghao seems like an okay guy. Maybe rude and kind of weird if he’s being honest, but he hasn’t done anything that actually hurt Wonwoo. The raven thinks he might be some weird reinterpretation of Sherlock Holmes or something, except he’s Chinese, and has a mullet, and said Wonwoo was elegant. 

Plus, Chan is adorable. The kid is seriously giving him déjà-vu feels. 

What could be the harm? The Chinese man didn’t look…dangerous? It’s not like he had anything else to do at the office for the next few days, nothing official at least. Usually he’d be in the office to go through evidence a few hundred times and then wait for Seungcheol or Jihoon to kick him out of there. 

He sighs, he should just do it right? What’s he got to lose anyways?

He dials the number on the card and waits for the other man to pick up. 

“Hello?” 

“Uhm…It’s Jeon Wonwoo…” He mumbles. Suddenly he’s not so sure anymore.

“Wonwoo, you’re right on time, it’s 11:59. I almost thought you wouldn’t call us for a minute.” A pause, he seems to be talking to his assistant. “Jeon Wonwoo, let’s meet on case 18 th crime scene shall we?” 

“Now?” 

“Time’s flying. We’ve already lost 6 hours. Get dressed and meet us out.” 

The forensic ends the call and heads to his room. What should he wear…? Not that it mattered on anything but he needed to look professional if they were going to ask questions. He’ll keep is simple he decides, a black t-shirt and some nice jeans. He gets dressed, grabs a backpack and fills it with some things he deems useful and gets out of the house. He sends Mingyu a message telling him he won’t come to the office today.

**Mingew[12:13]:** …Hyung are you okay? <:( 

Wonwoo rolls his eyes and replies he just wants to sleep more. He pockets his phone and runs to where the last case took place. 

********  
  
  
  


**03:00:00:00**

He arrives to find the two other men talking to the bakery owner. Soonyoung and Vernon must’ve already left. He takes out his camera and takes a picture of the place. He joins the two men and bows at the baker. 

Minghao is wearing a different outfit, a neat white blouse and some cuffed pants. His messenger bag is small and theres a pamphlet for some special exhibition tucked in the front pocket. 

“So you said there was nothing abnormal in the area yes?” 

The older man nods. “It was just like any other day, except for well, the body” 

“No one new moved into the area?” Chan asks. He’s wearing a cap with a teddy bear on it. Wonwoo almost pinches his cheek.

“Not really, the area is residential, so you know pretty quick if anyone new comes around. I do know though, and I told the two others that too, but apparently my neighbor heard a weird sound during the night, probably from that psycho putting on the display” 

“Hmm, thank you sir” 

“It’s no problem, good luck kids” The older man gets back inside his bakery. Minghao and Chan turn to the raven and smile “You’re finally here, let’s go to the café around the corner over there, I need a coffee”

They arrive at the café, a quite cozy place, and sit at the very back of the place. There’s a small secluded area, which must be perfect for couples in need of intimacy, or if you’re a drug dealer. Wonwoo doesn’t voice that out but Chan is giggling a little when the waitress says it’s a place for couples. 

When they’re seated, the detective nods at Chan, who takes out a map of the city. There are red points on the places where the bodies were found. The team also did this, but no one found any correlation between the places and a potential clue.

“After setting these points, Chan and I could find no correlation. Nothing obvious at least, but you agree that there’s something weird about this, yes?” 

“In what sense?” 

“You said earlier that there was at least 24h in the first few cases yes? And you heard the man earlier, no one new moved in. But look at this, the murders are not exactly at walking distances from each other. How does a man, murder, move a body back to ‘his place’, prepare whatever he has to and then get to the area where he has to display the body? He doesn’t live around here, so he came from somewhere else, the residential area ends here” he points on the man “How did he move a body so fast so far?” 

“Probably with a car” 

“So there’s a car in the equation” The Chinese man repeats. “He probably uses the same car for each murder, so there’s one car, that must have evidence on it. If we can find this car, we can find the murder.” 

“We’ve looked all over the city, this car is well hidden” Wonwoo retorts. 

“We need to think of a set area. Let’s think for a minute as if this man has a conscious. Jeon Wonwoo, if you had a car, would you place a bloodied body inside?” 

“I guess it depends…if my car isn’t really in the best state why would I care” 

“So it’s probably an old beat up car. An unregistered purchase of an old beat up car, less easy to follow.” 

That makes sense, but a car in that condition, in a city like Seoul, in the state the people currently are now…wouldn’t someone have noticed? The bodies found aren’t that far away from each other in some cases, someone would’ve noticed an old beat up car passing by so often, wouldn’t they? Wait…

“For case 18…wasn’t it only 9 hours to prep the body? At 4:37 he went on break and then didn’t get back to work and then someone found him at the scene at around 1:20 am” He says suddenly looking up from the map. The two look up a bit surprised.

“9 Hours…would that have been enough time to drive back to a potentially far preparation area and then go back? He disappeared in Gwangjin, but still appeared in Gwangjin, wouldn’t that be a bit too far, mostly with the prep that had to be made? It’s not exactly a 2 minute thing to prepare the scene he made?” The youngest asks. His teacher agrees silently. 

“Then, if it’s that far away, wouldn’t it be better for him to go closer to where he was. Lee lives and studies in Gwangjin, we looked through his apartment but we didn’t find it messed up.” The forensic continues. 

“What about the rest of the building? Have you looked at the university?” 

“There’s a rooftop and a basement, both are secluded areas though. The staff would’ve been on alert, there’s no way anyone could just smuggle a body in a classroom without being noticed. Sejong has a few tens of thousands of students.” The forensic objects. 

“We should still check, Wonwoo, could you ask Soonyoung and Vernon to check at the university? Ask if anything was bizarre?” The man nods and leaves to make a call. Meanwhile Chan tugs on the detective’s shirt. 

“What is it Chan?” He’s putting away the maps and getting ready to leave. 

Chan is about to say something but he tells his mentor that it’s nothing. Minghao doesn’t question it, he knows when to give the younger time to speak. They’ve been working together for a good three years now after all.  

The forensic comes back and tells them that the two policemen were going to ask questions around campus and see what they could find. They set to go to the last victim’s place of residency. “According to the file, he lives a few blocks away, we should be able to get there in no time.”

********  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**02:21:34:16**

It actually didn’t take them ‘no time’, it took them quite some time in fact, because said house was in a small street hidden from the main road. The building was quite old and not very well kept. There was an old man watering some plants that were deposited on the windowmill of the ground floor building. 

“Oh Mister, Hello” 

The man looks at the three of them and gives them a stink-eye. “Are ya from the police? I already answered all the damn questions! Leave me alone!” The man shouts and attempts to close the window but Minghao’s faster and holds the window open. He smiles at the man and says “We’re not the police, we’d just like to have a friendly talk sir” 

Now it would’ve been cool, if it weren’t for the fact Minghao was basically climbing from the man’s windowmill to the inside of his house. It was mostly creepy to be honest and Wonwoo was trying really hard not to laugh. 

‘This guy has no shame when it comes to investigating’ he thinks. 

“Jesus…Alright! Come from the door though ya weirdo…” The man mumbles and moves away, probably to open his front door. 

Minghao climbs back down from the window and tries to arrange his cloths. “That’s quite a show you pulled sir” The raven says to his detective partner.

“Well I did do theatre as an option in college” 

“It suits you” Wonwoo laughs. 

Minghao doesn’t reply but he smiles warmly at Wonwoo; which, for some reason, does a weird thing to the forensics’ stomach. Huh…Maybe he’s coming down with something? 

The three men get inside of the old man’s apartment and they introduce themselves. The man does that same and presents himself as Chae Suchan. There are a lot of pictures around the place, probably of the man’s family. There are potted plants as well as a few paintings left to dry in the kitchen. The dishes don’t seem to have been done. 

“You live alone?” The raven asks and the older man nods. “M’wife died last spring, don say yer sorry” 

Wonwoo awkwardly smiles. What a character…

Minghao and Chan sit down on one of the couches with the man while Wonwoo continues to look around. 

“So, the police came yes?” Suchan just nods. 

The youngest of the group asks him what he told them. “I just said that the kid was a good kid. He came by often to check up on me and the other people here…Damned shame…” 

“Mister Chae, did you notice anything bizarre happening last Wednesday?” 

“I wasn’t home last Wednesday, I was visitin’ my gran daughter, she’s a student from Ansan.” 

“Oh my, what does she study?” 

“She’s in Business, she shoulda done music, like she wanted. Her mother’ll always be stubborn…just like her father” Suchan sighs. 

“Did anyone water your plants then sir?” 

Suchan shakes his head and tells them that he didn’t get anyone to take care of the place while he was away but his upstairs neighbor did actually water his window plants for him. 

“Only the ones outside then?” Minghao tries to confirm. 

“Ye, only these ones” 

“Sir, could anyone access the basement or the rooftop while you are away?” 

“The doors should be locked but I keep’em open. Lee Sungwoo liked to study on the rooftop in summer. We got no balconies here so it’s hard when it’s this hot. The basement’s locked tho” 

Wonwoo approaches the man and sits down next to Chan “Mister Chae, where do you keep the keys for the basement?” 

“Under the potted plants over there” he answers confidently

“Mister Chae, was your house any different after you came back?” 

The man shakes his head “didn seem weird ta me” 

Wonwoo takes out the keys from his pocket “Why were the keys under the plants in the entrance then?” 

The man looks a bit taken aback but quickly takes his composure back and says that he might’ve just misplaced them.

They tell him they want to investigate the rest of the place. The man lets them and tells them to just bring the keys back before they leave. 

“Wonwoo, you should become a detective” The brunet says innocently. 

The raven just laughs and ruffles his hair. “I already am aren’t I?” 

They leave Suchan’s place and head first to the rooftop. The area isn’t too big, maybe 20m2. There are bars and bricks on the west side of it. The place is supposedly off limits, but there are books stacked near the door and a small box with snacks in it. The three men look around to see if they can find any clues. 

“I can’t see if there were any traces of blood around here, but it doesn’t seem messed up a lot.” The forensic says quietly. Minghao looks around at the surrounding buildings “It doesn’t seem possible for anyone to do the job he’s done here…the surrounding buildings are higher, so it might be too hard to do things unnoticed, even in the middle of the night.” 

Minghao’s right. If the killer had come here, there would’ve at least been a little bit of a mess. Plus, many windows offer a direct view to the rooftop, so sounds should’ve been heard in the middle of the night and someone would’ve checked what was happening. “The basement then?” Chan asks. He’s crouched near the books and looks deep in thought. 

Minghao asks the boy if everything’s okay. The brunet just nods. He seems to be a little emotional. “Are you sure?” Minghao repeats.

“It’s just…he looked like the type to study a lot…” He points at the books “Some of those are really used. Like look at this” he takes out a book. It has stains on it and highlighted parts. A lot of notes were taken in the corners of the pages. “It’s so unfair. He must’ve worked really hard to get to Sejong.” 

The two older ravens smile at the youngest. The eldest approaches him and ruffles his hair. “We’ll find who did this. Don’t worry, okay?” Chan only nods. 

********  
  
  


When they arrive in the basement, there’s a weird smell around. 

The place is spacious but messy. There are boxes scattered around the room, with even some broken furniture. The basement has a room hidden under the stairs. It has all the cables and light fuses in it. It seems too small for two male bodies to fit so the three men concentrate on the rest of the basement, where all the pipes and boxes are. 

There a closet with cleaning supplies in the corner. Wonwoo opens it and doesn’t notice anything weird but just for precautions “Chan, could you turn off the lights when I tell you to please?” 

The younger boy nods and skips to the light switches. Minghao approached the older as he sprays the liquid in the spraying can he has. “Is that Luminol?” The forensic confirms it is and motions for Chan to turn off the lights. There’s a substance that seems to be glowing. 

“There’s blood on the mop…” the two mumble. 

“Wonwoo, use it on the floor” The older nods and tells Chan to turn on the lights a bit as he sprays the liquid around. When the lights are off again, there are traces of blood everywhere, even on the walls. 

“Jesus…” The youngest whispers  

“He brought him here…” 

“He must’ve taken the keys from Mr. Chae’s place and prepped the body here. It’s so messy though, the blood splattered everywhere…It’s isolated and inaccessible, it’s perfect for him.”

“Do you think this is what he did with the other cases?” Chan asks from where he is, near the door. “I mean, did he always bring the victims to their apartment buildings and take care of everything there?” 

The two older men seem to think for a while and, it would make sense. Minghao says they should investigate someone else’s apartment building just in case, just to see if there’s a correlation. Wonwoo agrees and calls Seungkwan. 

‘Hello hello, Boo Seungkwan with you, how may I assist?’ the blond says on the other side of the line. 

“Seungkwan” 

‘OH! Won! Where the hell are you!? Mingyu said you weren’t home and you said you were sleeping!! He was worried sick!’

“I’ll explain later. Can you look up case 15’s Sun Wei’s apartment address for me?” 

The man on the other line hums and taps away at his computer. ‘She lives in Jongno-gu, why?’ 

“I see, thank you, forward me the location. I’ll call you guys later on” He doesn’t let the other answer and ends the call. A few seconds later, he receives the location with a sad face from Seungkwan. 

He laughs to himself and tells the two detectives that they should get on their way. Chan doesn’t miss a beat though and asks “Why case number 15 in particular?” 

“She’s the first body that was found in the same district as her apartment.” 

“How did you remember that!? We just found out they were killed in their buildings of residency!” The youngest is kind of weirded out by how Wonwoo’s memory works. 

“I remembered, why is that weird?” 

Chan gives him an incredulous look. It’s not his fault if he’s read the cases so many times he’s almost got them memorized. Okay, maybe it’s a little weird to have 18 cases of homicide learnt and memorized word for word, report for report; you can’t blame Wonwoo thought, he literally had nothing else to do anyways. 

Minghao just laughs on the side. He pats Chan’s face and gives him a look. Chan knows it’s ‘I told you he would be useful’ look but the older raven doesn’t notice their little exchange and instead hurries out of the building and onto the street. 

He hails a taxi and gives the man the address. The two other men join him inside the car. It was almost 5 pm. He should be feeling hungry but the breakfast sits heavily on his stomach. Maybe it’s the terrible smell or seeing all that blood splattered around the room. He feels nauseous just thinking about it. 

He really doesn’t like this case. He starts thinking about all the clues again. At this point, the words are jumbled up in his brain. It’s like a weird milkshake with places, numbers, timestamps, etc… 

His thoughts are interrupted by Minghao’s voice in the back seat. The man cleared his throat to get Wonwoo’s attention and started with “You’re just a forensic, Jeon Wonwoo?” 

Wonwoo really doesn’t like it that the man refers to him by his full name. It makes him uncomfortable. “Can’t you just call me Wonwoo or something” 

The detective laughs. He has a smirk on. As if he knew it made Wonwoo uncomfortable and just wanted to fuck with him. The elder sighs and just confirms the initial question statement instead. 

“Are you sure?” The raven sees how stubborn Minghao is. He seems like the type to hate being wrong. 

“What do you mean, Xu Minghao?” Two can play this game. 

“Well, for some reason I can’t believe you’re a simple police forensic.” 

“Why not?” He’s a bit curious about what the hell the other means but he tries to keep his poker face on. He can’t show any weaknesses to the enemy. 

“Well, I’m not sure, I’d call it a gut feeling. Did you just study forensic sciences in college?” 

Wonwoo chuckles, he’s not sure why Minghao keeps asking him personal questions and trying to get to know him, but he complies anyways. So far he likes the attention. “I studied medicine and crime pathology”

“Double major?” 

“I did 5 years in medicine and then another 3 in Crime pathology. It wasn’t supposed to be so short but when I was 23, Seungcheol and I met and he asked me to work at the station. I accepted.” Minghao only hums and doesn’t go any further. The forensic almost wants to ask what the hell this entire conversation was supposed to be about but stops himself. They’re already there anyways.  

********  
  
  
  


**02:19:01:18**

They arrive in a dorm. It’s new and there are many students around. Wonwoo wonders for a minute if the man could have just come in there with a body in tow. 

“The victims are probably still alive before he gets to the apartment buildings” he notes. “He can’t just come in here with a bloodied woman” 

The two others agree and they decide to ask the janitor some questions. The man is sitting on a chair near the entrance. He has a broom in hand and seems to be taking a break. 

Wonwoo gives the place a look and finds a security camera. He tries to remember why there were no videos in the clue file; was it broken? Did the killer hack this thing? While he’s thinking, Minghao starts questioning the man after a short courteous greeting. 

“I’m Xu Minghao, private detective. Have you noticed anything weird during the time Sun Wei died?” The man shakes his head. “The place is pretty well protected. There shouldn’t have been anyone in -” 

“What about the cameras. They’re broken” The raven interrupts. 

“How’d you know that?” 

“It said so in the report. The cameras had been non-functioning for two months before the case. There were multiple students who filed complaints about this, namely Sun Wei. Why wasn’t the camera replaced?” 

“If I knew I’d tell ya, but the direction decided that just putting a guard here at night was enough. The residence is closed off to the public most of the time.” 

Typical. It’s always easier to blame someone else. 

“What rooms are available in this residency, other than the dorms?” 

“We’ve got a kitchen and a lounge room on the ground floor. There are 52 rooms and total of 10 floors. Each floor’s got another separate lounge. There’s a small library and a gym in the 10 th floor.”

“Are there any non-accessible rooms?” 

“Other than my room and the electrical room not really. We used to have a basement but the door was locked down and it hasn’t been used in a couple of years.” 

“Could we check the electrical room and the basement then?” 

“Sure, but I’m telling you. It’s impossible to get in there. The door was cemented into place!” 

“Why was it done, if you don’t mind us asking?” 

“The director wanted to make the basement a study room but the budget was cut down so he couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t want to admit to it so he decided to just lock it down” 

Wonwoo lets out a giggle. Minghao smiles at that but he doesn’t say anything. He’s sure the forensic wouldn’t like being called cute. Instead he just walks towards the basement. There doesn’t seem to be anything unusual. The stairs stop to a small corridor that leads to the basement door. Just like the man said, it was cemented so there were no ways for them to get in. 

“Do you think the Electrical room is a better option then?” The raven wonders aloud. 

“Sir, is it possible for say, a student or an outsider to get into the room?” 

“I’m the only one with the keys and they’re always in my pocket. Except if he forced the door open there’d be no way.” He seems confident enough. He leads the way to the electrical room and opens it for them. There doesn’t seem to be any weird smells this time. 

Chan gets in last and shivers. “I have a weird feeling about this…” 

“What do you mean?” Minghao asks. 

“I don’t know yet, but I don’t like this place” He does little steps. They turn on the lights and look around. It looks organized and clean. Wonwoo decides to check for blood traces. Nothing once again. He gives a frustrated groan. “Where did he do it then…?” 

“Your room was in order right?” Minghao questions looking away from Wonwoo and to the man. He’s propped on the door frame. 

“Uhm, I don’t really sleep there, so I’m not sure” 

“…what do you mean you’re not sure?” 

“I work here, but I live with my parents in Nowon-gu. I only pass by the room once in a while to put the keys away.” 

“Where do you put them…?” 

“On the table in the entrance; I don’t like the dorm, since it’s small and confined to I don’t usually stay long inside” 

“Are you claustrophobic?” The janitor gives them an embarrassed nod. 

“And you didn’t think of checking your room after the murder happened?” Wonwoo raises his voice. He’s furious. Why was this man so…so…so stupid! He pushes the man out of the way and hurries to the room. The door is unlocked; of-fucking-course. 

“Jesus…” The small entrance leads to a small room. The room is hidden by a wall that forms a corridor for the entrance. Just like the man said, there’s a table right there. If the man came in, the wall constituted a barrier that would’ve blocked the view to the rest of the room. He blames the man for not seeing anything, but he also blames himself, the policeman, for not having checked the place.

Why was he so stupid! 

He huffs and gets in. The place is messy and dusty. It seems to have been cleaned out and tidied but it’s still quite messy. There’s a knife in the sink, it’s clean but Wonwoo would bet his whole salary that this was the weapon used to kill Sun Wei. 

He shuts the windows and curtains. By the time he’s done, the other three men are there. He takes out his Luminol and sprays the substance on the coffee table and the floor and the walls. He looks up to Chan, who gets the message and turns off the light. 

“My God…” He gasps. There’s blood alright. It’s everywhere; on the walls, on the floor, on the kitchen sink, on the knife. Chan gags a little from where he stands. The man looks like he’s minutes away from crying. 

“So this is where he did it…” the detective mumbles and inspects the place a bit.

Eventually he tells Chan to turn on the lights again. He walks to the boy and holds him. They hug like this for a while. He tries to calm the younger, who looks like he’s going to start sobbing. He’s empathic, Wonwoo thinks. It’s like he feels for all these victims, he feels how much they’ve been through. Maybe this is why he likes the boy so much. 

********  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They’re sat in the lounge trying to make a sense of all of this. So the killer brings his victims, or at least most of them, back to where they live and does his work there. Wonwoo tries to see if there’s a clue here. 

“For some reason, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

“What do you mean?” Chan asks; he’s visibly calmer.

“Well, if this is some kind of home related issue, why does he display the bodies in the way he does? It would make more sense for it to be a home problem if the bodies were displayed where they live, or if he at least killed them in their own houses. I don’t think the motive has anything to do with home. I think doing it here is just more practical for him.” He pauses. 

“If he does it every time in a different place, then no one would recognize him. He won’t do it where he lives, so nobody will be suspicious of him always bringing someone home.” 

Minghao seems deep in thought. He processes the information for a bit and asks “All the victims are students, correct?” 

Wonwoo thinks for a bit “Most yes, Boo Taegyu quit university a while before he was killed” 

“So all of them are either students or ex-students, they live in dorms, or studios. He knows where they live, so he can’t have chosen the victims randomly. There was research done, so that he could get an address to get the job done” 

“If they’re all students, where does he find all their profiles…surely the police would’ve known if someone checked the student records? Or if someone hacked into the school system? All of the students aren’t from the same school, it would be strange if the same thing happened to all of the universities and no one noticed…right?” Chan’s though is answered with a ring tone. It’s Wonwoo’s phone and it’s a call from Soonyoung. 

“Soonie, what’s up?” 

“Wonwoo you will not believe what we found! Apparently, after some digging we discovered there was a breach! It was protected so we couldn’t trace it but Sejong’s administrative system was hacked around two day before Sungwoo got murdered” Soonyoung informs him loudly. There’s another voice on the other line. It’s Vernon, he takes the phone from his partner. 

‘Not only that; but apparently this isn’t the first time’ 

“What do you mean?” 

‘The system was breached 3 times in the past 6 months. All three students whose profiles were checked were victims; Kang Minkyung, Boo Taegyu and Lee Sungwoo all were students in Sejong and got killed after their profiles were checked. It’s the same IP address. We got Jihoon to try to trace it but he said it’s protected. The guy knows how to hide’ He finally says. Wonwoo thanks him for the information and ends the call. 

“So the killer went on the school website and checked through student profiles and chose a student before deciding to kill them. He takes the student, usually still alive, and brings them to their apartments before killing them and displaying the bodies. He had everything planned out to make sure he didn’t waste much time. Less time spent, less mistakes made” the detective concludes. “We should go to Hongik” he adds. 

“Why?” 

“If what Soonyoung and Vernon said is true, Sejong shouldn’t be the only one hit by a hacker. My client’s daughter was a student at Hongik, there must have been a breach there as well.” 

The two others nod and they decide it’s time to leave the dorms. Hongik isn’t actually far from the dorms, a thirty minute drive which they make with a taxi. The man drives around like a madman and almost gets them killed three times. Around 10 minutes in, Wonwoo gets another call. 

Why is he so popular all of a sudden? 

“Seungkwan?” 

‘Hyung!!!! I’m so glad I finally have you on! Vernon told me you were out investigating?! What the hell is that about!?’ 

“I’ll explain later Kwan, is this why you called me?” 

‘Actually no, something happened and everyone in the station is losing their minds. The entire district is on fire. The idiots from EBS got some weird documentary on the killer out this morning, of course presented by Jun himself. They called the man predictable for murdering every Wednesday what even the hell that means” Seungkwan groans. He sounds really irritated and tired. Knowing him, he probably spent his entire time trying to calm down the others, trying to control the mess the media caused. Wonwoo feels some pity for him. “We got a paper. It just said ‘I’ll show you predictable’ nothing else.” 

The forensic hears a sob. His heart clenches. 

He’s known Seungkwan for the three years he’d worked as a forensic and he’d never seen the boy cry. He was strong and independent and always helped everyone when they needed someone to talk to. He was always cheerful and happy and brought smiles to all the officer’s faces. This case had exhausted everyone, but it probably tired Seungkwan out the most. 

“Kwannie, it’s going to be okay, I promise. We’ll find him I promise” 

‘Wait…’

“What’s wrong?”

‘Seungcheol…he was out of his mind when he got the letter. He got into a fight with Jeonghan outside the EBS building. He was so angry. He kept showing Jeonghan the letter and yelling this was all his fault. They started getting really violent. Jihoon and Seokmin stopped the fight eventually but Seungcheol Hyung was sent home for the time being. Hyung…what do I do!?’  

“Seungkwannie listen to me. Soonyoung and Vernon are coming your way. Go to my lab and stay there with Mingyu, you need a break. I’ll tell Soonyoung and Jihoon to take care of this. Okay?” 

‘Okay…Okay I’ll go. Be safe Nonu” 

“Don’t worry. Get yourself some rest. I’ll see you soon hopefully.” He ends the call and turns to Minghao and Chan who are in the back seat. He lets them know how things are at the police station. 

“You guys really are a mess…no wonder they called me.” That was a low one, Wonwoo thinks but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have the energy to get angry. He’s too nervous and worried about the others. “He sent a letter…he’s going to strike again.” 

“What?” 

“He put a paper near the station. It said ‘I’ll show you predictable’. He’s going to act soon.” 

“Shit.” Minghao said under his breath. “We don’t have much time left. It took him 9 hours last time, I’ll bet it’ll take him the same amount, maybe a little more to find his victim. We need to hurry.” Wonwoo and Chan both nod but say nothing. The tension is palpable.

********  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**00:10:38:18**

They get in Hongik University soon later. There are students all over the place. The campus is huge. They decide to head to the administration building. A quick question to one of the students and they’re there. 

The administration building is sleek and modern. It seems like the building was newly built in order to accommodate the ever growing campus staff. They enter the building and wait at the receptionist’s desk for one of the staff to come answer their questions. 

An older woman arrives only five minutes later. She introduces herself as Ahn Mina and says she’s the one in charge of the university website. 

“Could we talk in your office? We’d like to ask some questions?” Minghao asks politely. The woman agrees and leads them there. The office is big and clean. The three men sit down in front of her desk and start interrogating her. 

********  
  
  
  


**_00:11:00:00_ **

_ He’s out of his mind, as he should be. The press took the matters in their hands again, as if this was any of their business. Jihoon kept insisting this was just how media worked. A journalist was always in search of the truth. Seungcheol would disagree thought, sure, he’s thankful for EBS for informing him of all the latest news but he doesn’t appreciate them adding oil to the fire. A fire, might he add, that’s been slowly burning Seoul for the past 5 months.  _

_ The note is in hand is wrinkled and torn here and there. He keeps repeating the words on it.  _

_ I’ll show you predictable I’ll show you predictable I’ll- _

_ “Well if you’d look who’s here” He says when the one person he’s been waiting for gets out of the offices.  _

_ “Seungcheol…what could you be doing here?” The man has his hair tied in a bun. He’s wearing a large t-shirt and sweatpants. He looks like he’s going home. Isn’t he lucky to be able to do that when his entire office has been pulling all nighters.  _

_ The police officer angrily throws the paper at Jeonghan who catches it. He unfolds it and tries to decipher the words on the paper.  _

_ “What is this?”  _

_ “This is the fruit of all your hard work on today’s outstanding report, Yoon Jeonghan” His words are polite but he’s spitting out every single one of them. He looks absolutely livid. He’d already told the media to be careful with what they said, but of course, no one fucking listens anymore.  _

_ His hands are balled into fists and he’s trying his best not to resort to violence.  _

_ “I didn’t do this. If the police had caught him early on, none of this would have happened” He’s trying so hard to remember the breathing exercises Seungkwan told him to do but all common sense is out of the window at this point.  _

_ “Oh aren’t you smart then? Why don’t you try finding a serial killer”  _

_ “Don’t put this on me.” Jeonghan crosses his arms “I’m only doing my job. The people deserve to know the truth”  _

_ Seungcheol passes a furious hand into his hair. “I didn’t say don’t fucking do a report. I said be fucking careful with the words you use. Jesus was it so hard to not say ‘predictable’ in your goddamn report? Was it really!? Did you have to make that comment!?”  _

_ “I only wrote what I thought should be written. Jun made the executive decision to actually say it.” _

_ “This is not Jun’s fault. Jun is a face. Jun talks on tv, he enraptures the viewers and makes them believe all the bullshit you, the brain, writes”  _

_ “Thanks for saying I’m the brain cheollie” Jeonghan approaches him and hands him back the paper “Wouldn’t you like to know what that feels like?”  _

_ That’s probably when punches start flying around. They’re pushing, punching, shoving each other until a small body detaches him from the journalist. “He’s going to act again because of you! The next murder, It’s on your fucking hands you fucker!” He shouts. The person keeps pulling him away from the scene but his eyes don’t leave Jeonghan’s. He’ll show that fucker.  _

_ When they’re far away enough, he finally pays attention to the other. It’s Jihoon.  _

_ He’s not sure when the younger got there or how he knew he was at the EBS TV station. The blond doesn’t actually say anything. He doesn’t let go of his wrist and keeps pulling him away.  _

_ “You really did a show of yourself huh?” Jihoon eventually says.  _

_ Seungcheol only hums. “You’re going to be suspended when they know” The younger speaks again. _

_ “I don’t care”  _

_ “I know you do”  _

_ “Hmmm…” He’s got nothing else to add. They keep walking until they’re at a McDonalds’ joint. “I’ll buy you food.”  _

_ Seungcheol pats the younger’s shoulder as a thank you but he doesn’t want to talk right now. He’s tired, his fists hurt and he feels like he’s going to throw up.  _

_ “Fuck”  _

********  
  
  
  
  
  


**00:10:30:52**

Minghao, Wonwoo and Chan are all looking through the student files. They asked Mrs. Ahn to look through the student file system to see if anyone hacked into their system. She said it would take a while so they decided to look for the victim’s profile in hopes of finding something. 

No one says a word for a pretty long while. Wonwoo isn’t in the mood to talk, if he’s being honest he’s angry at that comment Minghao got out when they were on their way here. And here he was, almost thinking that guy was decent. What an asshole. 

Chan is the one who breaks the silence. “Why does Seungcheol hate Jeonghan?” 

“How did you know that?” The forensic raises an eyebrow. 

“I heard Seungkwan say he fought him. And he looked mildly put off when he watched TV this morning” The younger answers. 

The raven smiles and pats the younger’s head. “It dates back to their time in college. They were some kind of rivals.” 

“Rivals?” The older detective asks this time. Wonwoo’s still angry at him so he doesn’t look at him. He keeps his eyes trained on the files in front of him. 

“When Seungcheol and Jeonghan were in college, they used to be top of their departments. Jeonghan was the top student in Media and Television and Seungcheol was the top student in Criminology. They had one class together, and they kept fighting for first position. Cheollie’s always been very competitive and I know for a fact Jeonghan was as well.” He pauses. He was there during those days. He recalls all the verbal fights the two had.

“They used to get along until they were in that class. It was fine at first, they didn’t really know each other. But Jeonghan’s personality mixed with Seungcheol’s temperament…It was bound to explode. Jeonghan’s playful and fun. He’s caring and he doesn’t take things too seriously except if they have to do with his job, Cheollie on the other hand, he was always serious about everything. He gets angry easily but it’s only because he really cares about his job. I understand why he’d get angry after the report, they’ve been fighting a lot more since the case started” He finishes by closing a victim’s file and getting up. 

“You’re friends with Jeonghan? You don’t seem to hate him?” 

“I knew him back in college as well. It’s not that I don’t hate him, I guess I don’t really know what to think of him”  

“Why so?” The brunet asks. 

“I guess it’s because his personality doesn’t really get to me? He’s mischievous and he can appear nonchalant or obnoxious but he’s not that bad. Cheollie and him just don’t have matching personalities” The raven explains. 

That’s when the head gets in. She tells them she discovered something. “You were right, we were hacked” 

“Shit…” 

“Could you tell us approximately when the hacking happened?” she responds by reading the dates and times. Wonwoo tries to remember the dates of the other murders. From what his memory gives him, that’s probably what happened. 

“So this is really how he goes on about it…We need to find out why he chose these students. Wonwoo, do you remember everyone’s university?” Wonwoo nods “I think we can find more if we go to the lab. Seungkwan is there too so he could look up some things as well.” 

Minghao nods and heads to the door. 

“let’s get going then, time’s a flying!” He shouts raising his hands in the air. Chan quickly follows his mentor out and as they’re out of sight, Wonwoo thanks the woman. 

“It’s no problem dear.” She smiles at him and he leaves. 

He leaves the building and finds the two detectives at the door. Minghao turns to him and smiles. “I have a personal question to ask” 

“Shoot” the raven answers still not looking at the detective. He doesn’t see Minghao’s upset expression. “You seem very close to Seungcheol. Were you two dating?” 

“Minghao, that’s very personal and has nothing to do with this case.” 

“I did say it was a personal question. You seem to be okay answering Chan but not his mentor. Did I do something?” 

“I don’t know. You tell me” 

The detective sighs. Chan’s walking in the back. This feels like witnessing your parents fighting in public. He doesn’t know where to look. Minghao tries to ask again. “Why did you two break up?” 

Wonwoo stops in his track and looks at the other while crossing his arms. He stands straight and looks the man down. 

“I don’t know why this has any importance to you, but Cheollie and I did date for a while. It went great until we both had to work together and the director of our station discovered about it and threatened to fire us if we didn’t break up. Now that you know, please stop asking me questions about myself, we’re working together but we’ll never be friends.” He glares the other man down for a good 10 more seconds and then proceeds to walk away. 

He’s angry. He’s angry at Minghao for being so insensitive and rude, but he’s also angry at himself. Because no matter what he tells himself it’s true; they didn’t dig deep enough. They shouldn’t have missed all those clues. This is all his fault. Seungcheol counted on him and he disappointed. 

He knows Minghao did nothing wrong. He knows the other man just said the truth but he’s still angry. 

Mingyu once told him he needed to work on that. He said ‘Hyung, you’re really petty sometimes. You need to work on that. It’ll be hard for the future if you don’t.’ and that day he had not addressed Mingyu until it was time to go home. 

He knows what he did was just a proof of how much Mingyu was right. He knows he’s petty. He knows he gets upset over stupid things and picks at things that shouldn’t really matter. 

“Why am I like this” he asks himself frustrated. 

He hails another taxi and gets in at the front. He waits for the two others to get in and tells the man to drive them at his office. 

The drive is tense and very quiet. 

********  
  
  
********  


**00:09:45:29**

They arrive at the office and Minghao stops Wonwoo from entering the building. “I’m sorry” 

Wonwoo expected a lot of things. He expected another snarky remark, maybe the silent treatment, perhaps even for the man to call off their partnership but he did not, oh never, expect an apology.

“…what?” 

“I said I’m sorry. What I said in the taxi on the way to Hongik, that was rude and impolite. I shouldn’t have said that.”

For some reason the raven blushes. The other only apologized but for some reason that made him blush like a schoolgirl. Honestly, he’s kind of embarrassed right now. He got so angry and frustrated at the man and treated him just the way he didn’t want to be treated. He fumbles with the hem of his t-shirt. “I’m …also sorry. What you said, it wasn’t…wrong” 

“It was rude though, I’m sorry” 

“It’s okay. I’m also…sorry” they stand there awkwardly and don’t dare to look at each other’s eyes. They stay that way for a while until Chan clears his throat. “Uhm…we need to hurry…” 

Minghao’s eyes widen for a bit and he straightens himself and dusts the invisible dust off of his shirt. “Right.” 

“Right…” 

They enter the offices and head to the lab. It’s on the 28 th floor so they take the elevator. 

When they’re in, Wonwoo clears his throat and starts to speak again. “I’m sorry…again” 

Minghao tells him he doesn’t need to apologize anymore. “I’m also at fault. I kept asking because Jihoon and Seungcheol had a weird relation but you and Seungcheol also seemed close” 

“Jihoon and Seungcheol are in some…on/off relationship of some sort. It’s been going on for a while”

“Is that why you got angry? Are you…” he doesn’t finish. He waves his hand around, trying to explain the word he’s too afraid of saying. Chan and Wonwoo chuckle at that. The forensic smiles. They arrive on their floor and get out of the elevator. 

Before they enter the lab, he turns around and answers “I’m not jealous, Cheollie and I, it was a while ago. We’re just good friends” He smiles again and opens the door to the lab. He doesn’t notice Chan giving Minghao a look and the man blushing. “Stop it” he mumbles to the younger. Chan laughs. 

****

Mingyu and Seungkwan are both inside his office on his couch. Seungkwan is drinking a tea and Mingyu is scrolling through his phone. 

“You guys seem very busy” is what Wonwoo tells them as a greeting. They both jump, one more than the other though. They run to the forensic and bombarred him with question but he only shushes them and tells them he’ll explain later. Instead, he turns to Mingyu and says “Bring them to the kitchen to get something to eat. Seungkwan and I need to do some research” The taller nods and ushers the two to the kitchen. 

He enters his office with Seungkwan in tow.

When the door is closed, he shuts the curtains and sits on his couch. He’s exhausted from running all over Seoul and having to talk to people he barely knows. Seungkwan makes his way to Wonwoo’s desk and sits down, putting down his computer. He doesn’t start looking thought.

“Nonu?” He’s giving Wonwoo a look; the look to be precise. The forensic sighs and groans a weak “no” but the secretary doesn’t get the memo and rises in eyebrow.  

“Okay okay, I’ll explain”

“You better! Do you know how worried and confused Mingyu and I were? Also, I know for a fact you hate detectives. You hate them and then you go and what, play Watson with one?”

“To be fair, Chan is Watson. I feel more like an Irene Adler” he tries but the blond is onto him and gives him another look. The forensic sighs and gives up trying to divert the conversation. “It’s true thought, I am Irene” he lets out a breathless chuckles.  

“You’re beautiful and Minghao is in love with you?”

“No dumbass. Irene impresses Sherlock in the book, she’s witty and resourceful. He never actually falls for her…Minghao said I was insightful…”

“What?” Seungkwan is smiling now. He seems amused by this which only seems to get on Wonwoo’s nerve. Why did he think talking to Seungkwan about this would be okay? Seungkwan has the literal biggest mouth in this office after Soonyoung. He groans and starts explaining what happened. It’s too late now, there is no turning back. He accepts that he’ll be the talk of the station for the next couple of months.  

“He waited for me in front of the office and then told me to go get breakfast with him. We went to some fancy place downtown and ate and he told me, his words not mine, that I would be insightful to the case and that I had a lot of information about it so I could help out. Then he gave me his card and told me I was ‘elegant’” he blushes at Seungkwan’s growing smile. The younger gets up and sits next to his friend.

“And!?”

“And, I don’t know okay? I was intrigued. This guy just comes and tells you he can catch a killer in 48 hours! I wanted to know what makes him think he can” He crosses his arms petulantly and pouts.

“So you like him?”

“What!? When did I even allude to that!”

“Okay but he definitely likes you, seriously, a date in a fancy breakfast place? And he even flirts with you! Ugh I wish I had romances like you!!!” Seungkwan pauses and turns “You at least find him cute, I know your type!”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes and refuses to speak but the growing blush on his face is enough of a giveaway anyways. Yes, Minghao is cute. He’s attractive, he’d be blind to at least not admit that, but Wonwoo has a reputation to protect! He can’t just go around calling people cute.  

Seungkwan laughs. He gets back to his laptop and searches the victim’s profiles, leaving Wonwoo to simmer in his embarrassment. A good 30 minutes later, Seungkwan lets out a loud gasp that startles the raven. “What?”

“Okay, so Jihoon said the killer had artistic tendencies right?”

Wonwoo nods.

“What if that’s the main point?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve looked at the universities on the list and they all have an art program. So my thought is, what if this artistic tendency isn’t just, a character trait but a career option for the killer? What if, art was a lot more important in these cases? We thought he was just some sick psycho but what if he was someone actually trying to make art?”

“You think the displays are some art installations?”

“Yeah, what if, through the art installations, he lets go of some kind of frustrations.”

When there is no response, Seungkwan turns to look at Wonwoo. The older is thinking very deeply. His eyebrows are furrowed in concentration. The frown slowly morphs into a smile. “Kwannie, you’re a genius.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a genius but thank you” the younger blushes as Wonwoo gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Listen, we said the killer was young, so he could be a university student. If he was a student, I doubt he’d need to look for different universities to find a victim, since he’d have his list in easier access. What if he was one of the rejected ones?”

“Like, failed entrance exam?” The forensic nods. “Look up all rejected students in the universities that were targeted and then cut it down to students rejected from the art programs.” Seungkwan gets to work while Wonwoo peers from over his shoulder. They’ve got a lot of profiles to look through, this might take a while.

 

 

 

**00:09:00:00**

Minghao and Chan are eating a plate of sweet and spicy chicken made by Mingyu. The youngest had asked how come the lab kitchen was so full of food and Mingyu told them Wonwoo and he spend oftentimes days in the lab doing research. If the kitchen isn’t filled, Mingyu would’ve left a long time ago.

“So…” Mingyu starts but Chan beats him to whatever question he wants to ask by asking “What’s Wonwoo’s type?” Mingyu chokes on his saliva thinking he misheard the question.

“Excuse me?” He looks over to Minghao, who’s beet red but doesn’t shy away from the intern’s stare. “yeah…what’s his type?” the detective echoes.

“what” He already knows what this is about but he can’t let them onto that. He tries to make it seem like he’s against it.

“You know, what kind of men does he go for usually?” Chan tries to explain.

“No no, I got that part. Why are you asking?” He squints at the two of them. He tries to get them to shy away from it, he needs to test them. Seungkwan is going to love this.

“No reason, just wondering” The youngest answers softly, turning his attention back to the plate of chicken. 

“Well… I’m not against some gossip. I guess, If you must know…” he pauses “Wonwoo likes them funny”

“What?” Minghao’s the one to ask this time. Bingo!

“Well, I know nonu’s entire dating history, we’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights here, you know? He dated Seungcheol hyung in college, some guy called Joshua and when he was in high school, he dated his childhood friend but they broke up when they started college. He never told me who the guy was, there are rumors but some are really ridiculous. Like, Jihoon has been saying it could be Wen Junhui from EBS? Ridiculous right!? Like come on, Wen Junhui is basically a model, nonu is hot but not ‘that’ hot-” He sees the two of them giving him a look. He clears his throat, embarrassed and tries to continue with what he wanted to say initially. 

“Right, sorry, anyways, with all of the stories he’s told me, I concluded that all of them had a somewhat bad sense of humor, which is right up Nonu’s alley!”

“Wonwoo likes dad jokes?” Minghao looks so invested in the conversation Mingyu almost wants to laugh. 

“Oh you have no idea, he’d die for them” Chan gives Minghao a look. The older tries to ignore it because there’s no way he was going to tell the forensic dad jokes for the sake of courting him. He tries to get more out of Mingyu instead. He’s kind of hoping the forensic would like flowers or romantic nights on the han river. That’s definitely something Minghao can manage.

“Well, Nonu isn’t really picky. He doesn’t really discriminate appearance-wise and he doesn’t care about money and stuff.” The intern pauses and slowly gets closer to the other two. They instantly scoot closer to hear what he wants to say.

“Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but I think Nonu likes being able to lean on someone. Like, he enjoys having someone who can take care of him once in a while” the man whispers. “He likes being babied” he whispers finally and they hear someone clear their throat at the entrance.

They slowly look over to see who it is. It’s Seungkwan. Mingyu lets out a sigh of relief and puts his hand dramatically over his heart. “I thought I was going to die…If Wonwoo heard this he’d have my neck”

Seungkwan laughs, agreeing with his best friend and tells them they found some new information. The three men follow after the secretary into Wonwoo’s office. Before they get in, the secretary turns around and whispers a “It’s true though, he does love being taken care of” before getting in.

That gets Minghao to blush and Chan to giggle. The detective tries to get his assistant to stop but Wonwoo is already giving them a look.  The forensic doesn’t ask them anything, instead, Wonwoo looks over to Mingyu, squinting his eyes. “It was really loud in there, and suddenly…it got really quiet. What are you planning?”

“Me?!” Mingyu makes sure to make it as dramatic as possible. “I would never!” Wonwoo squints at him a bit more before laughing. He scrunches his nose affectionately at the younger and pats his head.

Chan subtly looks to his mentor to see him flustered at the sight of a smiling Wonwoo. The younger never thought that by accepting this case, he’d get to see these aspects of Minghao. When the older had whispered in his ear that Wonwoo was really cute the moment they got into his office, he never imagined it would escalate so fast.

The younger really wants it to work out for him. He’ll try anything if it means he can help out. He knows that if the two of them just got their heads out of the asses, they would get along really well. That’s why he pushed his mentor to apologize.

If playing cupid was the way for him to get these two together, then he’d play the role as long as he’d have to.

 

 

 

**00:08:33:28**

Wonwoo lets Seungkwan explain their theory. The younger had now written the name of the universities on the board and was explaining the research they had done. He tells the three that they’re thinking it might be a rejected student.

“Rejection to a university can cause such a strong reaction?” Chan asks.

“It depends on the character. Some of us take rejection harder than others. In his case, his profile might suggest he’s already in a bad state and the rejection was just another hit to his ego. If he takes art that seriously, it could have been humiliating to him.” The raven explains.

“I’ve looked through the profiles of all the rejected students from the art department. Then I cleaned up the search to the recurring names.” The blond says as he sticks some papers to the board. There were 827 students and searching the recurring names narrowed it down to 367. I then looked for ones with criminal records. I got 24 students.”

“I removed the students with crimes like theft and drunk driving. The three profiles left are students that have committed crimes like harassment, inflicting injuries, fights; anything that could point at a violent tendency. I have three profiles left, two guys and a woman.”

“A woman?”

“Yeah, one of the guys is out of question, he doesn’t live close enough. There’s still Jin Soyoen and Kim Dongsoo.” Wonwoo says finally, pointing at the two profiles.

Minghao comes closer, looking over at the young woman’s profile. She doesn’t seem deranged enough to be mutilating bodies, but there’s something in the way she looks at the camera…that puts Minghao off.

“Why was she rejected?”

“It says…’Unsure of artistic background’ whatever the hell that means.”

“What about Kim Dongsoo?”

“His grades weren’t high enough.”

“She’s the killer” Minghao whispers.

“How are you so sure?” Seungkwan asks incredulous.

“She has too much knowledge and skill to have bad grades.”

“It’s true, her hacking skills are advanced, and she has extended knowledge on western media. We need to go to her place” Wonwoo concludes. “Seungkwan, send me her address. Mingyu, you notify the station, tell them to look up Lee Dongsoo’s place just in case. I want Vernon or Soonyoung in our area just in case things get physical” Mingyu nods and hurries out to notify the others.

Wonwoo takes his bag and leaves the office with Minghao and Chan in tow.

When they’re at the front door, Wonwoo receives the address of the suspect. He lets Minghao and Chan know but receives no verbal response. He stops and looks back to the two who seem shocked.

“Wonwoo, hello” He hears a familiar voice say in front of him and turns his attention to it.

“Jun…”

 

 

**00:07:32:41**

When Mingyu’s back to the lab, Seungkwan is in the kitchen eating some chicken. “So…You know what Minghao and I talked about…Did you get anything out of Wonwoo???” The older sits next to his friend.

“He finds him cute, and I have some doubts that he’s attracted to him but isn’t letting it happen. I thought it was weird at first.” Seungkwan admits finally.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, they’re attracted to each other and they met over a serial killer case! It’s got to be a little weird”

“…I guess, but I don’t know…Where else would they meet, right?”

“Yeah, I think it’s kinda cute how they try to stay professional. Did you see Wonwoo’s face when Minghao explained why Soyeon was the killer?” He giggles recalling it.

“I know right! He had stars in his eyes! When I was talking to Minghao about Wonwoo, he sounded so invested and interested. It’s so cute!!” Mingyu hides his face in his hands. “I wish a romance like that would happen to me!” he sighs.

“You know what, I think he thinks Minghao is hot but he’s so busy being professional and proper he won’t let it happen. He can be such a tsundere I swear…”  Seungkwan says finally.

“I know…I feel like Chan is trying to help, I got his phone number. Maybe we can help him” the other replies. They laugh. A few minutes later, Soonyoung comes bustling through the lab door, shouting “Is it true!?” the two look up from their seats in the kitchen to nod.

“Oh my god, I have to tell everyone! I haven’t seen Wonwoo interested in anyone since that Joshua guy and that was like 3 years ago!!!” The officer shouts and runs back to his office. Wonwoo will most certainly kill him for this but he’s just looking out for him. If the others can help out too, it’ll definitely go smoother.

“By the way, you…you know”

Seungkwan smiles mischievously and nods. Mingyu squeals delighted and starts jumping from his chair in excitement. “What did you find!?”

“Okay so, he’s Chinese, but his parents moved to Busan when he was 4 for some job. He went to a private school and was part of the Wushu club. He went to tournaments and shit, I even have a video it’s really cool.” The younger goes to clean his hands and motions for Mingyu to follow him to Wonwoo’s office. “I found his personal website and stuff. Apparently he went to art school and has a degree in Art History. I was curious on how he became a detective and he had a mentor.”

“Oh my god!!! He’s artistic! He’s perfect for Wonwoo!”

Seungkwan giggles “I tried to stalk his social media, there isn’t much. I did however find out he’s the very definition of romantic. He’s the type that would serenade you under the moonlight and shit. Imagine what would happen to Wonwoo if he saw that!”

“He’d probably die”

“Most definitely. Wanna stalk Minghao’s Instagram?”

“Oh Hell Yes!”  

 

 

**00:07:03:28**

“I didn’t think I’d see you out of your lab, you look good”

“Jun…I don’t have time for this, I have work” Wonwoo tries to keep calm. He’s good at keeping a stoic expression. He’s kind of angry at Jun and the other two for getting Seungcheol off duty. He knows they only did their job but he’s petty.

“Don’t be like that, I found out about the Seungcheol thing, I came to talk”

“You want to apologize?” The raven crosses his arms. Minghao and Chan approach the two, the older stays alert in case anything happens.

“No, I don’t think we did anything wrong to be honest.”

“Then why are you here?” Minghao puts a hand on Wonwoo’s shoulder to ease the tension there. The older seems to be stressed and he’s not sure what he can do. He kind of wants to take Wonwoo away from here, away from this confrontation. Chan looks on edge, he holds onto Wonwoo’s shirt to stay grounded.

When he pats the shoulder, the raven turns to him to give him a smile. It’s weak but it’s there.

The reporter doesn’t reply for a while. He looks deep in thought. He looks at the way the two interact and smiles bitterly. “I take it didn’t work out with Joshua?”

“Jun, Joshua and I broke up 3 years ago. You’d know if…”He doesn’t continue, Jun already knows what he means. He smiles bitterly again.

“Yeah I know. I came to talk to Jihoon, he’s the one that contacted me.” Upon hearing this, Wonwoo’s eyes widen. Jihoon? His Jihoon? He’s a bit surprised. Jihoon doesn’t really like reporters, almost as much as Seungcheol.

“Lee Jihoon?”

“Yeah, he called me in saying he wants to talk about the fight. I’m guessing he wants me to put in a word to get Seungcheol back to work” Jun lets out a breathy laugh. He puts his hands in his pants pockets and looks at Wonwoo. They stare at each other for while.

Wonwoo thinks Jun looks just as good as he did when they were in High school. He wonders how it all went to shit between the two of them, probably when Jun started working with Jeonghan. He’s not sure why, Wonwoo doesn’t hate Jeonghan, but for some reason it still deterred his relationship with the reporter. He almost misses him.

“Will you actually help?” Wonwoo asks eventually.

Jun smiles and chuckles at Wonwoo’s hopeful expression “It depends how good Jihoon is with defending your boss” Wonwoo glares at Jun and the other lifts his arms in defence “I’m joking. I’ll try to do what I can.”

“Promise?” The raven asks suspiciously. Jun laughs more and nods. “I promise.” There’s a pause before Jun speaks again. “I heard you’ve been working a lot on the case”

Wonwoo smiles but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sorry Jun, but you won’t be getting anything from me regarding the case. Try your luck with Soonyoung, maybe he’ll say something” Jun laughs “I guessed you’d say that. At least I tried.” There’s a heavy pause.

“I guess I’ll leave you to your case...Good luck” the reporter finally says before walking towards the door. When he’s holding the handle, he turns back to the three of them and whispers “You really do look good” and leaves.

When he’s in the building, Wonwoo lets out a sigh and leans over Minghao. He’s tired. It’s almost 11 pm and he hasn’t actually rested since he met up with Minghao. The other is rubbing his arm reassuringly. Chan on the other hand tells them he’s going to get a taxi for them. Minghao nods.

“Are you okay?”

Wonwoo’s eyes are closed but he smiles and nods. “I’ll be fine. I just didn’t expect it”

“What is?”

“I haven’t seen in more than 3 years, it was weird talking to him. We were really good friends. I think I got stressed over confronting him. I’m glad he didn’t say anything” Wonwoo chuckles but keeps his eyes closed. He’s not leaning completely on Minghao. His head is resting on the younger’s head. Minghao hadn’t stopped the gentle touches.

Soon though, too soon in Minghao’s mind, Chan comes back telling them that he found a car. They hop on and try to get back to work. 

 

 

**00:05:37:29**

It’s already midnight by the time they’ve arrived. Chan kept nodding off in the car on Wonwoo’s shoulder. The older smiles when they eventually arrive and Chan whines that he needs five more minutes. It’s cute. Wonwoo really likes Chan.

Minghao’s in the front, he pays the driver and gets out of the car. He opens the back door for Wonwoo to get out but before he does that, he leans inside and whispers gently for Chan to wake up. The youngest wakes up eventually and rubs his eyes. “Sorry…” he blushes and the two pat his head.

The detective steps back and lets Wonwoo out Chan following closely. They thank the driver and look up to the building Seungkwan told them about. It’s old and badly kept. The walk in and go to the 3 rd floor. They don’t move until Wonwoo receives a message from Vernon telling them he’s close by.

Wonwoo takes out a gun from his backpack and tells the two others to step back. Chan whisper asks how he got that but the forensic just smiles.

The eldest knocks on Soyeon’s door. No one answers and Wonwoo tries to open the door but it’s locked. “Jin Soyeon, open the door!” he shouts but nothing. He thinks for a bit before firing at the door handle and opening the door carefully. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone” Minghao whispers.

The forensic clicks his tongue and tells them not to move. He goes in and checks the room but there’s no one there. “Shit, she’s already on the move”

Minghao and Chan enter the apartment. It’s a mess.

There are papers and files all over the place, even on the ground. Multiple art pieces are hung or stored in various corners of the house. The living area is littered with take-out food boxes and soda cans. There’s moss green couch against the wall where more papers rest. The entire place smells.

The other half of the living area appears to be a makeshift studio. Art supplies of all kinds are placed scarcely around the desk. There’s an unfinished canvas hanging on an easel.

“Search the place, maybe we can find something about where she is”

The two others nod and start looking.

Minghao looks over the papers, while Wonwoo searches the studio and Chan looks through the other rooms.

“All of these seem to be about the older victims, nothing about a new one. There are a lot of papers about art projects and sketch ideas. She’s a dedicated woman” Minghao says while picking up the papers from the ground. There are even papers under the couch and others are stuck on the walls.

“There isn’t anything here either, only art projects, albeit a bit trippy but nothing new. It looks like she paints the displays before getting to work.” He says. He looks over to the unfinished canvas but it’s only a sketch with rough colors applied to it. It doesn’t seem to depict any place in particular but the display is inside a room.

“She’s going to do it inside of a room, she doesn’t usually do that.” Wonwoo says eventually, he lightly touches the painting and looks at his hand “the paint’s still fresh” Minghao approaches the canvas. “It’s oil paint. It usually takes 6 to 8 hours for oil paint to dry” The forensic nods. “How long do you think this has been drying?”

“The borders are a bit dry.” The detective touches the paint and rubs his fingers. “Maybe an hour at most, it’s still really fresh.”

“We still have time then. We need to hurry up.” Minghao agrees. Chan joins them a few minutes later with a file. It’s filled with papers. “What’s this?”  the forensic asks.

“University rejection letters, she kept all of them” The youngest says. He opens the file and takes out the letters. “She applied for multiple programs in each one.” The younger says eventually.

“Take them out and let’s classify them. I need to see all the Universities she’s applied for.” Minghao says and they start working. They put each letter on the ground in a different category. “She applied for 7 different universities” Minghao concludes eventually. “Hongik, Konkuk, Seoul national University, Ewnha Woman’s college, Hanyang, Sejong and.” Wonwoo nods along.

“There’s something not right…”

“What do you mean?” The youngest asks picking up the letters. “We have a victim from all of them, except the Seoul Art Institute. Why did she leave it out?”

“Chan, give me the letters from the SAI please” the detective asks and looks over the letters. All of the letters were badly kept, some were even torn but these weren’t. They were rumpled on the edges but no cuts or ink had gotten on them.

“She seems to value the ” Minghao tells them eventually. “If she valued that school, maybe someone she knows went there, and she didn’t want to touch it”

“What if it’s the opposite. If she really valued it that much, it would’ve been impeccable. I think instead of value, she just puts it above other universities. It seems she really wanted to get into that one. What if it’s her last hit? What if, for a grand finale, she hit the one place she really wanted to go to?” Wonwoo retorts. They stay silent, thinking who she could possibly hit.  Chan eventually sits down on the couch thinking.

If they don’t figure this out fast, there’d be another death added to the 18 others. “Where is her laptop? Or computer? The device she used to hack into the systems, it should be around no?” Minghao asks eventually. The two others agree and start looking. They inspect every nook and cranny of the house, in the hopes of finding the device.

It takes around 10 minutes before Chan shouts an “I think I found it” from the bathroom. The two older men join him in there. The place is messy and oddly decorated. Wonwoo inspects the room, there are several paintings on the walls and he kind of wonders what’s the point of putting those here, wouldn’t the humidity alter the paper?

Chan takes out a plastic bag from the tank of the toilet. There’s a small tablet inside of the bag, secured with plastic. Chan cringes as he opens the plastic bag and takes out the device. Wonwoo takes the tablet and starts looking.

He goes through the history first but she probably erased it. He checks files and isn’t surprised to find she erased everything. Minghao asks “What are we going to do?”

The forensic smiles and gets out of the bathroom, motioning for the two other men to follow him.

“I haven’t given up yet” he says before inserting a cord and joining it to his own laptop.

“You brought your laptop?” Minghao asks surprised. The raven just chuckles before replying

“I decided to bring it with us after we passed by the office, figured it might be useful.” Minghao nods and sits down next to Wonwoo.

Minghao knows close to nothing about coding and hacking, so he’s understandably confused when Wonwoo clicks his tongue. “What?”

“The pc is empty, there are no files saved” Wonwoo’s gaze lingered on the screen a bit longer before he looked up “What now?” 

Minghao sighs and takes a seat next to Wonwoo, the couch creaking under his weight. He closes his eyes, face scrunched up in concentration.

“Let's think about this backwards, rather than trying to find something on the pc let's think about what we want to find on the PC in the first place.” He mutters, hands joined in front of him.

Wonwoo takes note of the gesture but makes no comment on it, instead he follows his friend in his thinking process “Well...she must have used it to gather info?” He says inquisitively.

Minghao straightens his back and glances at Wonwoo “What kind of info?”

Wonwoo catches on, his fingers twitching before they fly about the keyboard. Not waiting for an answer.

“Student information”

“And where do we find that?” Minghao was now facing Wonwoo, a distinctive glimmer in his eyes.

“The school archives” Wonwoo says just as he enters the SAI server.

He pauses his fingers ghosting over the keyboard as he ponders where to look first, right then he recalls something Jihoon had once told him. 

_ On a particularly rough case, the police had been in need of proof to incriminate a group of cyber criminals, on that day Wonwoo had walked in on a sleep and food deprived Jihoon (not a good combo), after asking him about their procedure Jihoon who had been particularly talkative had told him: _

_ ” Every hacker, no matter how brilliant, leaves a sliver of information behind, you just have to know what to look for.” he had said before putting his headphones back on, efficiently ending the conversation. _

_ The case was resolved with no hiccups, and that one sentence had stayed with Wonwoo ever since. _

What was Wonwoo looking for? Someone breaking into student ID’s and checking their private coordinates.

How would they do it? By breaking into the server.

Meaning they must've gotten onto the servers radar at one point. He tried looking for any footprints the pc could’ve left on the server. 

“Did you find anything?” Minghao said peering at the pc.

“No there are no trails of Jin Soyeon‘s IP on the server, maybe she isn't targeting the-” Wonwoo stopped “Wait” he said, he quickly pulled out a list of the pc’s installed devices.

“She has an IP scrambler” Wonwoo mumbled disgruntled.

“What does that mean?” 

“Means we won’t find traces of her on the server, her IP was hidden” He spouts out, not being able to meet Minghao’s suddenly scorching gaze, feeling the burn of it on the side of his face.

“She was invisible online?” Minghao asks surprised anyone could pull that off.

“Well not exactly” Wonwoo informed “The IP scrambler doesn't make her invisible per say, the Scrambler generates random IP’s or latches onto existing ones. Usually your IP leaves footsteps but having an IP scrambler means you’re walking around in someone else’s shoes altogether” Wonwoo explained in terms comprehensible to someone with no knowledge of hacking.

What now? There were no documents on the PC and no traces of her online, they had no lead and little time left before she struck again. Wonwoo glared at the PC almost accusingly, there had to be something, somebody's life was on the line! His breath quickened as dread began settling in, someone was going to die because of his incompetence, he felt goosebumps run through him “What now-”

“Does that mean she impersonated one of the students?”

Wonwoo froze, eyes wide, his head turning so fast he almost got whiplash. Minghao’s face came into view, serious, focused and a hint of something else “ What?” Wonwoo squeaked, his voice raw. 

“Does her having an IP scrambler mean she impersonated one of the students?” Minghao spoke again, slow and clear.

Wonwoo’s vision came back into focus, he meant to give a more eloquent answer, he really did,  but at that moment all that came out was “Uhh” Minghao’s eyebrow shot up inquisitively, waiting patiently for Wonwoo to regain his bearings.

“N-Not necessarily” He said blinking, his cheeks warm, feeling embarrassed at losing his cool so easily. 

“I mean, IP scramblers can sometimes generate random IP’s, so it's not like she necessar-” He stopped, catching onto Wonwoo’s line of logic.

“That’s a long shot” He states dubiously, although his hands said otherwise already taking action.

“Is it doable?”Minghao said.

“What is?” Chan spoke up.

Wonwoo tried clearing his throat before responding.

“Not finding her IP address doesn’t necessarily mean she didn't leave any traces, it just means she didn't leave her own, that doesn't mean we can't find someone suspicious snooping around”

He said a lot more confidently than he felt.

“And how are you recognise her then?” Chan said, his interest peaked. By now all three of them were huddled around the pc, their eyes fixed onto the monitor.

“All IP’s here should look similar, they’re all students in the same school, so they should all come from a similar region, what we’re looking for is an IP that doesn't fit in with the others”

Pulling out a geolocation database he started looking for any abnormal IP’s. Silence reigned as they all intensely studied the screen, almost boring a hole into it. After a bit of prodding Wonwoo stumbled upon an abnormality.  

He almost cried out in joy finding a trail of abnormal IP’s  leading to a singular student’s file,

Comparing the IP address to the geolocation database, indicated that the IP belonged to someone from Sweden, he would’ve laughed at the unlikeliness of it had the situation not been so dire.  

****

“Ah HA!” the raven gets up hastily throwing his laptop on the couch “I think I got it. The student profile is for a student called Ren. I looked through the student record, she’s a top student and was actually not supposed to attend. She joined last minute” The forensic says as he packs his things.

“So you think she might have thought of it as Ren stealing her spot?” Wonwoo nods and takes his bag. “She might have, she was already unstable but if she knows Ren came in last minute, she could see her as a threat”

Chan opens the door and lets his mentor and the forensic out before following closely after them. The university was 20 minutes away by car, so they quickly take a cab and tell him to drive to the university as fast as possible. While the man is driving, Wonwoo calls the station to let them know what they’ve got so far. They ask him to stop by the Arts building when they’re almost there. Minghao pays the man a hefty sum and they all get off. “Where do you think she might be?” Chan asks.

 

 

**00:02:01:51**

 

 

“The art building? It’s really late, some students could be going back home, some stay on campus to finish time consuming projects…” Minghao inquires. “That’s what I used to do back in the day, maybe she’s looking for her in the studios?” Wonwoo and Chan nod and they make there way to the building.

The Arts’ building is decorated with multiple art projects made by the students. There are a lot of people on campus for some reason. “Isn’t it weird that there’s so many people around on a school day night?” Chan wonders out loud. Wonwoo kind of agrees. He looks around to see a small gathering of people on the side of the building. “What’s that” he asks pointing towards the group. He stops a student and asks him.

“That’s the astronomy club, they’re hosting an event tonight. The kids are going to look at some constellations. Something about a wolf or something” the student replies. Wonwoo thanks him and the boy bows and leaves the three.

“Okay, we should start with the crowd” The detective nods and they run towards the mob of students. The three men look around a bit, trying to identify their suspect, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in there. The detective eventually tells them they should look through the studios.

The adrenaline is pumping through Wonwoo’s veins. He’s terrified. What if they don’t find that woman? What if he fails again?! What if they lose sight of her and never find her again!? Many thoughts go through his mind while the look through the classrooms. They’re all stopped however, when he feels a hand grip his own. It’s Minghao. “Hey, we’re gonna find her okay?” the younger reassures but Wonwoo can only nod meekly.

They keep looking until Chan bolts in front of them. “It’s her!” the younger shouts as he’s running. The two other men follow after him but there’s no way they could. When Wonwoo sees the younger run, he almost thinks the younger is flying. His feet barely touch the ground long enough before he soaring through the corridor.

Wonwoo doesn’t see the suspect, but he does hear a girl crying. He concludes the woman already got to Ren before they did, but the good news is, the woman is still alive. They keep running to try to catch up with the younger, and that makes Wonwoo forget Minghao’s hand that’s secured tightly around his own.

The younger disappeared in front of them but they find him looking around frantically in front of the building. “Where is she?!” Minghao asks.

“I lost her…” Chan looks on the verge of crying “The crowd was too big and she disappeared. I kept running to find her but I couldn’t” He sobs silently. Wonwoo feels a pang in his heart and approaches the younger. He pats his head and when the boy looks back at him, he tries a smile “You were amazing Channie. We’re going to find her okay?”

The younger nods, quickly dries his tears. Minghao’s closer to him now, soothingly rubbing his back.

“We need to find out where she went.” The two others nod.

Minghao becomes silent and thinks. “We already know she’s going to act in a room, what place could hold significance? I don’t think she’d go to the victim’s place, since we already know about that, and she probably understood that we do.”

“If it’s not the apartment building, and not the university, it has to be an artistic place. A museum?” Chan wonders out loud.

“Probably, but which one? Seoul has a lot of art related ones, how do we know which it is?” Wonwoo asks. “Her persona, from what we know is that she likes being seen. She likes being recognized.”

Minghao’s eyes widen. He fumbles to take out his phone. “We know she likes being seen, so she wants to go to a museum that’s often visited and that’s renown right?”

“There’s many in Seoul. How do we know?” Chan asks again.

“Seoul Art Center then? That’s the most renown one isn’t it?” Wonwoo inquires.

“Yes but it’s currently 1 am, and most museums are closed at this time, but,” he starts and opens a page before showing off a page. It’s the page for an art gallery in Gangnam. It’s Sophis Gallery and there’s a huge banner on top of the page. “Sophis Gallery is holding a night time only exhibition from a French artist. The rooms are dark and very lightly illuminated for the displays. It’s perfect for her.” Minghao finishes.

Minghao looks over at the two and sees the way Wonwoo is looking at him. The older is smiling widely. He looks relieved. The man runs to Minghao and hugs him. He doesn’t say a word and Minghao is too shocked to react so before he can even reciprocate, the moment is over. Wonwoo smiles as he lets go before turning to Chan. “We need to hurry then. I’m going to call Seungkwan”

He says and they start running to get a car. In the car, Chan sits in the front while the two elder men sit in the back together. Wonwoo dials Seungkwan’s phone number. It rings for a few minutes before the boy answers sleepily.

“Nonu?”

 

 

 

**00:00:51:10**

“Kwannie? Are you still at the office?” Wonwoo asks on the other side of the line. Seungkwan looks around a bit disoriented. He’s still in Wonwoo’s office. He probably fell asleep on the couch. He hums and gets up to his laptop. “What can I do for you?” he asks.

Mingyu is asleep sat at the meeting table. Seungkwan wants to go poke his cheek while he’s still unconscious but duty calls!

“We’re currently headed to Sophis Art Gallery, can you send over the team? We think we’re going to get her” Wonwoo says quickly, he sounds out of breath.

“Sure,” he starts sleepily “I’ll-“ He pauses for a second, trying to process the information he’s acquired. A beat, then two and he lets out a loud enough yell to wake Mingyu up on the meeting table. “What!?” he shouts and only hears Wonwoo laughing. “Just send over the team, yeah? Call over Seungcheol.” Seungkwan hums “Yes sir!”

The call is ended and Seungkwan takes the office phone and calls over to the police office. “Yeah?” it’s Vernon. The blond groans a bit before repeating what Wonwoo said to the other.

“Now?!” The younger asks again and Seungkwan groans “Yes! Go! Now!”

“Oh! Uh okay I’m going then” the younger stammers and ends the call.

“What’s happening?” Mingyu appears from behind.

“Nonu and Minghao and Chan are after her. They say they might be able to stop her” Seungkwan relays.

“What!? Oh my god. We need to be ready then! I’m going to the police office to see if they need help!”  Mingyu says taking his bag. Seungkwan thinks he should also go to help Seungcheol out. He takes the keys from Wonwoo’s office and locks the lab and they leave.

 

 

 

 

**00:00:49:58**

The police office is a mess. Everyone is running around in a hurry. Some are calling the detention section to get a cell ready, some are calling lawyers, Soonyoung is getting dressed and taking his firearm. Vernon is calling Jihoon and Seungcheol to let them know to join them on site.

Seungkwan and Mingyu get to the office and join Soonyoung and Vernon. “Can we come with you? We want to help!” the taller says. He’s jumping around excitedly.

“Seungkwan we need you here. The office needs you. Mingyu, I don’t trust you with a firearm so you’ll help him around. Joshua should come any moment now, so I need you guys to be around to welcome him” Soonyoung tells the two. Mingyu almost deflates until he hears he has a mission to accomplish.

The two nod and go to Seungkwan’s office.

The police force leaves the office. It should take them around 20 minutes at this time of the night to get to the gallery. They silently pray that this chase is finally over.

 

 

**00:00:46:29**

The three men arrive on site and run to the entrance. Wonwoo shows his police badge to the receptionist and explains the situation. The woman tells them no one like that came in from this door.

“Is there a backdoor or an entrance used by artists?” the detective asks. The woman answers there is, that the door is located south. She gives them a card that lets them enter from that door and they run over to the artist lounge.

“Chan, I hope you’re ready” Wonwoo says smiling. “we’re counting on you” The younger nods, a look of determination obvious on his face.

Wonwoo leads them and takes out his firearm. He lets Minghao slide the card in and he slowly gets in. “Where do you think she is? There are too many people around for her to be in the exposition rooms” Chan whispers.

“There’s a room where artists can store artwork and work on their displays more if they need. It’s hidden from the public. It should be around over there” Minghao whispers back.

The forensic follows to where Minghao is pointing and slowly opens the door. They’re all sweating. If they don’t find her here, it might be game over. When the door is wide open, they don’t find anyone in the room at first sight. The artist workshop is divided into three rooms. There are no doors in between them. The walls are white and dirtied with paint.

The middle room is small, there are some tables and some supplies but there isn’t much happening. This room looks more like a storage room, judging from the boxes with artwork pushed against the wall. Minghao and Chan enter the room on the left. There are more tables and supplies and there’s a few aisles propped on the walls. Boxes of paint and brushes are scattered around the room.

Minghao signs to Wonwoo that there isn’t anyone in there. Chan and Minghao join the elder and slowly get into the third room. At first they don’t see anyone, because there’s a wooden board blocking the view but as soon as they enter, they see the woman lay unconscious on the floor, Jin Soyeon preparing her supplies on the ground near her. She doesn’t hear them come in.

“Jin Soyeon! You’re under arrest!” Wonwoo shouts and the woman looks up in shock. She whispers a shit and swifly moves the knife she’s holding in her hand to the girl’s neck. “Don’t do anything or I’ll kill her”

**00:00:36:17**

“You wouldn’t. Even if you did, it wouldn’t save you. I hope you know that.” Minghao says. The woman does know that, so she decides, in a split second, to run over to the three men to tackle them.

The forensic is too surprised to move out of the way so the woman manages to tackle him to the ground and almost cuts him with her knife. Minghao is faster thought, and hits her hand. She cries in pain and lets the knife go.

“You fucker” She gets up, to punch Minghao but the latter manages to block her hits. He gives her a hit on the rib, getting her on her knees. Wonwoo hurries to the unconscious woman, to check if she’s fine. She is. With a sigh of relief, he turns to watch a fight unfold. Although the woman didn’t have much experience in martial art, she was strong, so she kept hitting Minghao.

**00:00:00:05**

The detective eventually kicks her with his leg and makes her stumble a bit. It seems like she realizes she doesn’t stand a chance and runs away. The ravens are taken aback and taken a minute to process but before they even get to chase her, they hear a loud “I got her!!” from Chan.

**00:00:00:00**

They hurry to the younger, checking if he’s fine. The woman is unconscious by him.

“How did you do that?”

“I thought she’d try to run again so I waited behind the wooden board. When she ran I bolted.” The younger answers with a smile. He looks proud of himself as he should be.

“Good job Chan.” Minghao says ruffling the younger’s head. The boy smiles widely, glad that he’s been praised.

“I didn’t even notice you moving, you’re really fast” Wonwoo says eventually, after hand-cuffing the woman. There are police officers waiting outside, some of them join them and he motions to the room where the victim lays unconscious.

“It’s my speciality!” Chan answers simply. That gets Wonwoo to smile and nod. Suddenly he remembers who Chan is and he’s a bit surprised he didn’t think of this sooner.

Seungcheol, Soonyoung, Jihoon and Vernon join them eventually. Seungcheol looks tired but he’s smiling. “Good Job you guys, this is a relief” He says, while Soonyoung and Vernon take the woman away.

Jihoon nods silently, and looks back as the killer gets moved away. “Glad this thing is over. Now we have to work on the damned reports.” The eldest lets out a groan and buries his head in his hands.

“And I have to send an apology letter to Jeonghan….”

“How did Jun manage to get out back on the job?” The forensic asks curiously.

“He came to the office and told them that Jeonghan was also at fault and that instead of making them both stop, they should do extra work to get themselves forgiven. Jeonghan has to write a report that talks positively about the police and Seungcheol has to give out an apology letter.” The blond snickers. Seungcheol groans again, hitting the smaller’s shoulder. “Shut up.”

“No”

“Fuck you”

“Gladly.” Jihoon watches Seungcheol’s face redden a lot and laughs before leaving them behind to talk to Soonyoung and Vernon.

Wonwoo chuckles but stops when Seungcheol glares at him.

“Thank you Minghao, Chan. You guys did a good job, we can’t possibly thank you enough”

Minghao and Chan bow politely and smile. “It was our pleasure.”

**91:29:24:41**

“Join me” is all that Minghao says when he finally approaches after the three of them left the building. They’re standing a bit far from all the others, watching them interact together.

“What?”

“Join Chan and I, we’ll get a bigger place.” He holds Wonwoo’s hand and stares into his eyes. “Join me”

Wonwoo smiles brightly at him. He’s so earnest it’s cute.

“I know now why Chan was so familiar”

“huh?”

“When I first met him, Chan seemed familiar. It stayed in the back of my mind during the entire day. Now I know why he looks so familiar” Wonwoo smiles to himself, he looks over to Chan, who’s talking animatedly with Soonyoung and Vernon. They seem to get along.

“When I first started the job, there was a case on the table. Apparently a couple of two had disappeared from their house leaving behind their 15 years old son. He was abandoned like that one day. The kid was rescued by the police a week after his parents left. He was going to get sent to an orphanage. I think he didn’t like the idea and he ran away. The police tried to find him for days and sometimes they would but this kid has a gift. He was so agile and fast he always managed to slip right through.” Wonwoo laughs. “The case was forgotten eventually, because other cases kept piling up.”

“I see…” It’s Minghao’s turn to look over to where Chan is standing. He has a wide smile on his face. “I never asked him why he wanted to be a detective; I wanted to respect his privacy but now that I know. A lot of things make sense” Minghao smiles when he sees Chan jump over the police car and getting scolded by Seungcheol.

“So you won’t be joining us I take it?”

“I can’t, I have my own family to take care of. Seungkwan and Mingyu would probably set the lab ablaze” Wonwoo chuckles. They still haven’t let go of each other’s hands. “But,” he pauses. It lights up hope inside Minghao. He can’t let this be the last time they see each other.

“I wouldn’t mind…passing by sometimes. I also wouldn’t be against being invited to dinner, maybe chat a little.” The raven turns to Minghao and they stay like this. Minghao gives him a smile. He has the urge to kiss him but he tries to stop himself.

“so, dinner?”

“I thought you’d never ask. Where are we going?” Wonwoo asks mischievously.

“You seem to have an idea in mind”

“hmmm, there’s a restaurant downtown, it has a nice view on the Han river…”

“A fancy dinner for the first date? I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes “You’re getting paid for this, don’t act like you can’t afford a little dinner” He smiles and walks away to Chan. Minghao lets out a chuckle and follows suit. The fact he didn’t deny it was a date, that probably just made Minghao’s night. He hopes they can work together some more. He’s not sure what the future holds for them, maybe it’ll never work out. But right now, looking at the other smiling and laughing at his colleagues antics, holding onto Minghao’s hand, the wind softly blowing in his hair, Minghao thinks it’s all he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> This was an extremely long process and it took me for fucking ever to finish it. I had to plan out actual murders in order to make sure the whole damned thing made sense but I'm aware there are some inconsistencies. Please don't be shy and ask if there's something you want to know! 
> 
> Also I'm shit at laptops and programming and my sister wrote the part with the hacking so sorry about that...
> 
> This fic is actually for my sister, so I hope she likes it. 
> 
> Enjoy ! Sorry again for any mistakes or inconsistencies....


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